


To Save Those Who Can't Be Saved

by UselessReptileWrites



Series: Dreemurr Siblings Three [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Adventure, Bittersweet Ending, Discussion of No Mercy Route, Friendship, Gen, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route - "I want to stay with you.", SAVED Asriel Dreemurr, SAVED Chara Dreemurr, Siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2019-07-03 13:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15819522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UselessReptileWrites/pseuds/UselessReptileWrites
Summary: Frisk, Asriel, and Chara go back to Waterfall to solve the mystery of the lone statue sitting deserted in its halls. Along the way, they uncover more questions than answers, and find themselves forced to face their greatest faults and failures.





	1. A Mystery Unfolds

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first time I'm posting a multichaptered work in progress to this site! On that note, I have no idea where this is going beyond a general idea of what the ending will be like and a few subplots I'd like to explore, if I even manage to finish this at all. But I hope you'll enjoy it, regardless.
> 
> I don't write well on deadlines, so there'll be no update schedule for this piece.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a history assignment leads to questions that no one can answer, Frisk jumps to hasty conclusions, and Chara just wants to watch their show in peace.

“Chara, it’s my turn for the TV now.” Frisk crossed their arms and hoped they looked suitably stern.

Alas, it seemed like they didn’t. Chara’s eyes flickered toward them before they flitted back to the flashing screen. “I have just started watching my show.”

“For the third time today!” They dropped back down on the couch next to them, grinning with the force bumped Chara slightly into the air. Chara wove their fingers together in their lap, but beyond that showed no other signs of irritation.

“Chara’s watching _The Tower and the Inferno_  again?” Asriel walked into the room, his nose crinkled in disbelief.

Frisk snorted. “Yeah.” They didn’t get the appeal of fantasy when they lived with magic-using monsters now. And since the show was made and ended before monsters returned to the surface, the magic was all just special effects, and was nothing like the real thing.

Okay, maybe it looked a little like it, even if it wasn’t a form of expression. At least in most cases.

But still. Three episodes in one day was ridiculous.

And Frisk really wanted to watch something funny. _The Tower and the Inferno_  was way too serious. Frisk had watched an episode once and only laughed twice.

“What can I say.” Chara inclined their head so slightly Frisk wasn’t even sure they’d moved on purpose. “It gets me fired up.”

Frisk stuck out their tongue as Asriel groaned and covered his face. “Seriously, you’re starting to sound just like Sans.”

Chara seemed unbothered. Their interest was completely absorbed by the tall humanoid creature on the screen, making some dramatic speech about the wrongdoings their ally had committed. Something like that.

“Can I use the TV after this episode?” It was only fair, since Chara had already watched three episodes of their show that day.

“Yes.” A flicker of their eyes as they gave Frisk a sideways glance was the only movement they made. “I must warn you, though, that this is the hour long series finale.”

Frisk suppressed a groan. “How much longer is it?”

“I just started the movie ten minutes ago, so I would say approximately fifty minutes.” They looked bored as they said this.

Frisk slumped dramatically onto their side, draping an arm over their face. “That’ll take forever.” They weren’t truly bothered, beyond the slight inconvenience, but they knew it’d get their siblings to laugh.

Indeed, Asriel did laugh quietly, and while Chara didn’t make a sound the corner of their mouth twitched up. A victory, then.

“You’re acting like Mettaton,” Asriel said, shaking his head.

Frisk couldn’t help but smile at the comparison. “Thank you!”

Chara, not once glancing away from the screen, poked Frisk in the shoulder. “I do not believe he meant that as a compliment.”

Frisk halfheartedly swiped at Chara's hand, uncovering their face in the process. “Don’t you have a special to watch?”

Chara’s shoulders lifted, just slightly, in the suggestion of a shrug. “Do you not have an essay to write for History?”

Frisk huffed. They did. But then again, so did Chara and Asriel, and while Chara was the kind of person who would complete an essay early, they knew Asriel probably hadn’t even started his, and Chara wasn’t calling him out.

“I don’t want to do it right now.” They prodded Chara’s leg with their foot. “I want to wait until you’re done watching this special, and then watch something funny.”

“What are you doing for your essay?” Asriel asked. Frisk noticed he looked slightly nervous, leaning forward slightly and not meeting their eyes.

Frisk shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m thinking on writing about something in the Underground. Like that Waterfall statue?”

Asriel bit his lip. “You’d probably be better off choosing something else.” He gave Frisk a lopsided, almost nervous, smile. “Trust me. I’ve tried to find it out on a few of my…” He glanced around before continuing in a quieter voice, “…my resets.” He swallowed and continued speaking louder, but his body was still tensed. “Trust me. I asked everyone. Not even Mom and Dad knew. Not even Gerson. And they were in the Underground since the beginning.”

Frisk sat up. “What, not even they knew?” Gerson, sure, he tended to forget a lot of things, but their parents?

“They are monsters, not gods.” At least Chara had glanced over at them this time. The subject interested them more than Frisk had thought. “Asriel is right; you should change your topic.”

Frisk nodded. “Okay, I’ll change the subject, but what if I tried to find out more? On the side?” Surely their siblings couldn’t fault them doing more research.

Although Chara did look like they were considering faulting them. At least Asriel looked supportive.

“I suppose that Mother would encourage your education,” Chara said, after a moment, “but I do not expect for you to find anything, if Asriel could not.”

“You know, I didn’t really delve into that too much.” Asriel spoke slowly, his eyes facing his feet as if in thought. “I was more interested in, you know, the current time and stuff.” He grimaced and shuffled on the spot. “But maybe we can learn a little more if we dig into it? I mean, people don’t just make statues and leave them for people to see with no reason.”

Chara sighed. “Who knows? Perhaps someone was working on a statue and did not like how it was turning out and abandoned it. Perhaps the mystery was the point of the piece. In any case, what are the chances that the sculptor is alive now, and wishes to be known?” They turned their attention back toward the television, their hands linked together on their lap.

Asriel narrowed his eyes. “Well, trying wouldn’t hurt, would it?” He glanced back at Frisk, his eyes wide and almost pleading. “So, what’re you planning on doing?”

Frisk hummed and considered their options. If their parents didn’t know about it, and Gerson didn’t know about it, then how would they learn more about the statue?

 _Well, Mom did say that a good way to learn about stuff is to experience it yourself,_ they thought.

“I think we should go to Waterfall and look at the statue again. Maybe there’s something someone missed.” They realized as they said it that perhaps it wouldn’t be the plan that went over best with their siblings.

Indeed, Asriel was grimacing, and Chara had glanced away from their show to raise an eyebrow at them.

“And how, may I ask, are you going to convince our parents to take us, or to let us go?” Chara’s tone barely had an edge. It didn’t need to.

That was trickier. “I don’t know.” They shrugged. “I’ll ask, but…” They weren’t quite sure how their parents would respond. They loved their mother, but Toriel was quite protective, even when she didn’t need to be. If they managed to wait until the weekend, when they went to stay with their father, they could ask Asgore. However, the King was always reluctant to upset his ex-wife, and even if he didn’t think the trip back to the Underground was a bad idea, if he even suspected Toriel did he’d deny them the adventure.

So there was only one solution.

Frisk glanced around, but it seemed Toriel wasn’t around. She was probably working on making new assignments on her study, or something. Either way, she wasn’t around to hear what they had to say.

“You know that day off coming up, right?” They couldn’t help but whisper, even knowing their mother wasn’t around to hear.

“Yes, we do,” Chara said, hands tightening around each other until their knuckles paled, “and no, we are not sneaking out.”

Frisk pouted. They’d planned on whispering it all dramatically, like the kids did in the movies.

Asriel scratched at his budding horns, biting his lip. “I’d really like to check out that statue,” he said, and he did sound torn over saying it, “but Mom and Dad would get really worried if we snuck out to see it.”

“It’s not like anything bad is going to happen.” Humans stayed away from the place, and the monsters who hadn’t left, for one reason or another, wouldn’t hurt the crown prince, the ambassador, or former ambassador and fellow prinxe Chara. And it wasn’t like they were going to do anything bad on this trip. They were just going to learn. Even their mother couldn’t get mad at them for that, right? Especially if they came back before she or their father noticed.

“I don’t know.” Asriel still looked torn, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Maybe we should ask them first before we do something drastic like that.” He shrugged and gave Frisk a clearly forced smile, the one that showed his gums.

Frisk crossed their arms, but admitted to themself that perhaps jumping to “sneaking out” was a bit drastic, even if they were pretty sure what their parents’ answers were going to be.

“Fine.” They pointed in Chara’s direction. “But it isn’t like we’d have been in any danger if we had. I could’ve always gone back a save if something bad had happened.” And they doubted that even Chara and Asriel would remember, if it did.

Chara inclined their head. “I was thinking along the lines if our parents did, somehow, find out we snuck back to the Underground without their permission.” They gave Frisk a loose smile that didn’t meet their eyes. “But if it floats your boat, then go ahead. That just means more time with the television for me.”

Frisk nodded. The feeling of not being able to turn back now they had somewhat of an idea of what to do, and where to go next, filled their heart. They took a deep breath, and relished the feeling of determination as it filled their limbs, making them feel larger, stronger, than they were.

With that in mind, they sat on the couch.

Asriel tilted his head. “Aren’t you going to ask Mom if we can go?”

Frisk nodded once, a sharp and decisive movement. “Yeah, but after my turn on the TV.”

After all, they’d already called their turn. Besides, the Underground wasn’t going to go anywhere before they could ask their mother if they could go.


	2. Plans and Requests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner is eaten, questions are asked, and a talk is had.

“Hey, Frisk, Chara, it’s dinnertime.”

Asriel poked his head into the living room. Chara was seated on the sofa, reading a book, while Frisk sat cross-legged on the floor next to the coffee table, alternating between watching something on the TV and scribbling notes on a piece of paper. It was either something to do with being an ambassador or the essay they’d been assigned. Given Frisk’s tendency to procrastinate on essays and their dedication toward their ambassadorial duties, no matter how honorary, it was probably the former.

“Just let me finish this sentence.” Frisk mumbled it so absentmindedly that Asriel could barely understand them.

Chara nodded. “I shall be there.” They pulled a bookmark out from the last page of their book, put it in its place, and walked toward the kitchen as if it was filled with dignitaries to make good impressions on.

As Frisk continued scribbling (and Asriel couldn’t help but notice it was a long sentence) Asriel wondered if he should ask them the question that’d been on his mind all throughout helping his mother cook dinner.

The thought of something about the Underground he didn’t know so well had bothered him like when he got flour in his fur. It even distracted him to the point that he’d hardly been able to concentrate on helping his mother cook, even though they’d been making cinnamon buns and that was a fun food to make.

The ability of monster foods to be nutritious, no matter its form and flavor, was something that he appreciated after sampling healthy human food.

But no matter how fun cooking and baking usually was, he just couldn’t stop prodding at the gap in his knowledge. He counted himself lucky that his mother didn’t notice his distance, despite being good at hiding his feelings when he needed thanks to his time as a flower.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

But still, he shouldn’t have blurted out, “So, have you asked Mom about your idea yet?”

It wasn’t that the question was harmful, really. Perhaps he’d spoken a little too fast or loud, or they hadn’t yet planned what they were going to say and he was adding more pressure to them. In any case, he shouldn’t be distracting them while they were writing.

Thankfully, they didn’t seem that bothered. He knew them well enough to know their little tells, how their face grew tense above their eyebrows and on the corners of their mouth, how they straightened their spine out just slightly, to make themself look taller. Instead, they paused and tapped their pencil’s eraser against their cheek.

“Not yet.” They continued their sentence. “But I was thinking of asking her over dinner.” They finally tapped the point against the paper in the merest suggestion of a period and set it down. “What do you think?”

Asriel tilted his head. “Yeah, I think it’s a good idea.” He hummed a bit as he cast his mind back to what he remembered from their time cooking. “She did seem a bit stressed when we started making the food, but I’m pretty sure that she was relaxed when she took it out of the oven. At least, I think so?” He shrugged; he should’ve been paying more attention. “But I don’t think she’s bothered over anything serious, so I think it’ll be fine.”

Frisk beamed. “Thanks, Azzy.” They stood up and brushed eraser dust from their pants and shirt.

With that, Asriel walked back into the kitchen, where Chara was already settling down with their plate of food.

Toriel smiled as he approached. “Is Frisk coming to dinner?”

Asriel nodded. “Yeah, Mom, they’re coming.”

With that bit of news, she grabbed her plate and Frisk’s and walked to her chair. She set down Frisk’s plate in front of their usual spot before she took her place.

Finally, Frisk entered the room, trotting over to the table with haste when they saw what was on their plate.

“Thanks, Mom!” They gave her a thumbs up as they dropped down onto the chair.

“You are most welcome, my child.” With that, she took a cinnamon bun between two claws, being gentle so it wouldn’t rip, and began to eat.

Asriel glanced over at Frisk, waiting for them to ask their question, but they seemed to be planning to put it off until they finished. They had grabbed the cinnamon bun with both hands and were eating it, regardless of how sticky their face was getting.

He saw Chara meeting his eye and shaking their head with both humor and resignation at the sight of their sibling making a mess of themself. Chara, themself, was using a fork and knife to slice their bun into bite-sized bits. Asriel guessed he could understand, kind of; cinnamon buns were messy. At least Chara didn’t have fur; washing sticky stuff off your hands was difficult when you did. But he was sure that they were using it more to appear as dignified as they thought a prinxe should look at all times, even just at a family dinner.

Asriel focused on his own dinner, eating like his mother did, but his mind was too busy dwelling on the mystery, and his mother’s reaction to their request, to savor the taste.

Finally, Frisk shoved the last bit of cinnamon bun into their mouth and raised their hands to sign. “Mom, is it all right if we went to the Underground next time we have a day off?”

Toriel paused, clearly surprised at the question, but in Asriel’s opinion she recovered very well. Instead of being obvious over the shock, she grabbed a napkin and wiped her mouth before responding. “Why, whatever do you need down there? There are very few people who still live down there, and very few attractions that the Surface does not have.”

As Frisk explained their curiosity over the statue, Asriel couldn’t help but grab at his shirt and try not to hold his breath in suspense.

After Frisk finished, Toriel closed her eyes. “I shall think about it,” she said. “I am very glad that you are taking an active interest in learning more about a subject that interests you, little one. However, the Underground is remote, and should something happen, I do not like being so far away from help.”

Frisk blinked. “But it’s not really dangerous now.” They kept signing, hands moving so fast they were almost unintelligible. “And you’re a good healer! And no one would mess with us if you’re there!”

Toriel laughed. It wasn’t as hearty as when she heard a good pun, but at least it wasn’t forced. “Goodness, child, you are very eager to explore this mystery!” She reached over and patted their shoulder. “I shall consider it, and even if I decide against you going, I am sure I can find someone who has photographs or a sketch of it. Is that acceptable?”

Frisk pouted and kicked their leg. “I guess.” Asriel nearly laughed at their puppy eyes; the perfect touch.

Still, it seemed their mother wasn’t fooled. She covered her mouth to hide her smile from them as she said, “Oh, dear. It looks like you have been picking up some bad habits from Greater Dog.”

Frisk’s body shook from holding in their laughter as they tried to maintain the sulk.

Two clicks of metal against ceramic as Chara set their fork and knife down heralded their preparation to speak. “I am sure Frisk hopes their expression will give you paws for thought.”

“Chara! No!” Frisk clutched at their chest, slumping back in the chair as if slain.

Toriel giggled. “Well, if they think their expression can work on an old lady like myself, then they are barking up the wrong tree!”

“Traitors!” Frisk gasped. They reached out two hands toward Asriel. “Save me!”

Asriel laughed as he shook his head. This was too fun.

With a deep breath, Toriel composed herself. “While the puns are doggone good–” She paused to let Frisk protest halfheartedly “–we should get back to eating, or taking care of our plates. After all–” Asriel could hear her struggle to stifle the laughter in her voice as she glanced at Chara “–we would not want to fall asleep at the table because we are too dog-tired.”

“No!” Frisk buried their face into their hands and slumped onto the table, barely missing their plate as they finally broke down and started cackling. Even Chara chuckled instead of just smiling so that it reached their eyes. Asriel himself was laughing and smiling so much that it hurt.

Still, as everyone calmed down, his mind turned back to the statue.

* * *

Later that night, as Asriel laid sprawled over his bed and contemplated what he could do in the few minutes left before his mom came in to announce bedtime, he heard a knock on the door. Too soft and not decisive enough to be either his mother or Chara.

“Come in, Frisk.” He sat up, and sure enough, Frisk walked into the room, the breeze they brought in their wake stirring his houseplants' leaves.

“Thanks,” they said, and dropped down on the bed next to him like it was theirs. They wove their fingers together in their lap. They weren’t quite nervous about what they wanted to say, but neither was it the easiest thing in the world to speak.

“What’s up?” He hoped that was a good enough prompt for them to speak.

“I was wondering, what do we do if Mom says we can’t go to the Underground?” They bit their lip and stared at their feet. “I mean, at least she’d be helping with finding the photos and stuff, and I’d be happy that she did, but…”

“It wouldn’t be the same as going there ourselves?” Asriel did kind of know where his mother was coming from, what with having lost him, Chara, six other children, and almost Frisk as well, but it wasn’t as if they were helpless. They’d each lived in the Underground, alone or nearly alone, for how many resets. They could look after themselves.

The thing was, how could they balance that fact while not hurting their parents at the same time?

A prodding finger snapped him out of his thoughts. “Sorry, what?”

“You give good advice.” Frisk had their head tilted at him. “What do you think we should do if Mom says no?”

They were obviously hoping he’d agree with their idea to sneak out. But even if the thought of not knowing anything about the statue, of not even trying, made him feel like picking at his fur from annoyance, he couldn’t put his curiosity above people’s feelings. Not anymore.

Plus, wasn’t he supposed to be a good influence or something like that?

He used the back of his hand to nudge at their arm. “Then we listen to her.”

Frisk huffed and flopped backward onto the mattress. “You’re no fun,” they signed, hands raised up above their head.

Asriel shook his head. “The right thing isn’t always.” He grabbed an arm and helped them sit back up. “Now if you want to lie down, go to your own bed.”

With a giggle and a stuck out tongue, Frisk shook their head. “No way! Yours is softer!”

Asriel doubted that.

He also doubted that they’d confess that if he said so.

A knock on the doorframe startled him. “Asriel, Frisk, it is time for you to brush your teeth,” Toriel said.

Frisk glanced at Asriel’s bedside clock. “But Mom, there’s five minutes before bedtime!”

Toriel shook her head. “And by bedtime, you need to be in bed, not brushing your teeth.” She walked back down the hall, the claws on her feet making clicking sounds all the way down.

Frisk huffed and jumped off the bed. “When you’re king, can you make some kind of law that prevents people from telling us to brush our teeth?”

Asriel laughed, but the mention of him being king made his soul shrink with concern. “It doesn’t work like that. I mean, maybe I could, but as king I’d have to limit my own power and rule responsibly and stuff like that?” He grinned and hoped Frisk didn’t realize how fake it was.

Thankfully, they didn’t. “Big meanie.” With that, they vanished down the hall with a final raspberry in his direction.

Asriel sighed. Not loudly, just a soft rush of air through his nose.

He felt kind of bad for not confessing how he felt about being the crown prince, kind of like he was lying even though there was nothing to lie about. But he didn’t want anyone to worry, so it was for the best.

Right?


	3. Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chara struggles with friendliness pellets and Asriel tries to get to the root of things.

“I do not see why you wish for me to practice magic,” Chara said as they and Asriel stood in their backyard the following morning before school. “I see no use in doing something that I have proven that I can hardly do.”

Asriel rubbed at his head, avoiding the spots on his crown where two horn tips were emerging. “Well, you do have a soul and body like a monster now, even if you do still look human.”

Chara let their left eyebrow rise in challenge. “And what if that means that I still have the magical abilities of a human, regardless of my body and soul?” Because while Asriel had, in conjunction with Frisk’s research, been able to use the power of six human souls and the combined strength of all the monster souls to form new bodies and souls for them, that did not mean that their essences changed. And since theirs was that of a human, then perhaps that meant that they had all the aptitude toward magic that they had before their revival.

“You do have some magical ability.” He tapped his claws against each other, a nervous tic. Chara let their face relax, keeping their smile but losing their challenging expression. “I mean, you can make those little magical specks.”

_You mean ‘friendliness pellets?’_ They almost voiced their thought, but fortunately the memories of how he felt about his actions while a soulless flower occurred to them before they could open their mouth.

So, instead, they focused on their soul, feeling the pulses of magic that was like a heartbeat, but even more subtle. Once they found it and were able to focus their attention on it, they imagined it taking form next to them.

Instead of fire magic, like they would have preferred, or electric magic, which would not have been that bad, or even just small star shaped bursts, little white specks of magic appeared. They were slightly translucent with rough edges, like snowflakes. And, like snowflakes, they were fragile enough to dissolve in seconds.

“See?” Asriel pointed at where the pellet had been. “You can do magic. You just, you know, have to work on projecting a bit of yourself into it.”

If Chara had not heard that a thousand times by now, then they must have been repeating his advice to themself in their sleep. They’d heard countless times that magic, for monsters, was a form of self-expression, an echo of their soul. The same rules should have applied to them now that their body was formed of magic and their soul the same, but they were unable to create any beyond the friendliness pellets, used only by infant monsters getting used to existing and the soulless.

But they had been practicing their magic for two years and clearly had not come close to improving. The only reason they still were was to appease their brother who refused to give up on them.

Chara was fairly certain of the reason why he was so stubborn regarding helping them.

“You know,” Asriel said as Chara tried to focus on their magic, “it might help if, you know, you kind of…” He glanced away as he left the sentence dangling.

“What were you saying?” Chara asked.

He scratched at the base of his left ear, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he continued to avoid their gaze. “Well, you’re always doing stuff like hiding your feelings and smiling even if you don’t really feel happy.” He curled his toes, digging his claws into the dirt, and bit his lip. “Maybe that’s kind of holding you back?”

Chara nodded. They did not see any fault in Asriel’s logic. That did not mean they intended to “open up,” as it were. Showing complete honesty of their feelings never did end well for them. It only led to those they cared about getting hurt. If there was one thing Chara had sworn to do with their second chance, it was to protect their family, no matter the cost.

They inclined their head. “I shall keep that in mind.”

They had just summoned another magical speck when the sliding door slammed open. Their concentration shattered, the bullet of magic crumbled. Chara stamped down the feeling of irritation and turned to face Frisk, running toward them in their sleepwear, bare feet sending dew droplets flying in the morning light.

“Mom said yes!” They spoke so fast their words almost blended into each other. As for their volume? Chara was sure that their father, who lived in the castle on the other side of Home the Third, could hear them quite clearly.

“Really?” Asriel perked up like an overexcited puppy.

As for Chara? They had to admit the idea of learning more about monsters appealed to them.

That was not the problem at all.

Asriel glanced at them, and his excitement faltered, but thankfully he turned back to Frisk. They could not help but feel grateful for his understanding of them, even as they cursed the eye for detail he had developed as previous owner of the ability to reset.

Frisk stamped their feet. Chara could not help but wince at how dirty they already seemed to be getting, and at the imagined feeling they received from thinking about how that must feel. “Yeah! She said as long as we listened to her and were careful, we should be okay!”

“Frisk, my child!” Toriel stepped onto the small patio. “Please do come in and get dressed!”

Frisk turned. “Coming!” They turned back to Chara and Asriel. “See you at breakfast!”

Frisk bolted in, passing Toriel in a blur of purple. Toriel clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Chara, Asriel, it is time for you to finish whatever you are doing and get ready for school. The trip is not for another week, so please do not take a mental vacation from your education!” And with that, Toriel stepped back inside, sliding the door closed as she went.

Chara checked to ensure their clothing was not dirtied by either the training or Frisk’s arrival. Nothing was amiss beyond a few creases in their shirt, easily smoothed.

“You know, I think Mom and Frisk would understand if you’d rather stay with Dad or someone rather than come with us,” Asriel said as Chara checked the cuffs of their corduroys for mud or excessive dampness from the dew.

“No, it is fine.” They decided their garb was fine and began to head for the door. “I can handle it.”

“You’re worried about the Underground looking empty, isn’t it?” He didn’t sound accusing. But of course, how could he sound accusing?

Chara took a deep breath, pushed down the unsteadiness. “It is but mere nerves that it might stir up…” They cursed their weakness at having to pause to compose themself. “…memories. I am sure both you and Frisk have similar concerns.” And it was all thanks to them and their influence.

Asriel scratched the tuft of hair that stuck up between his horns, mussing it even more than it already was. “Yeah. But I just want to know more about the statue so badly that it sort of takes my mind off it.”

Chara nodded. “Then I shall endeavor to keep my mind off it, as well.” And they turned on their heel and walked inside.

It took a moment for Asriel’s footsteps to follow theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have realized that I am like Asgore with naming chapters, at least. And this story is resisting all plans I've had with it. Every time I make an outline, it decides to do what it wants anyway.
> 
> Remember, I'm always open for constructive criticism! If there's anything I can do better, please let me know. If I can't use it for this chapter, then I can always use it in future works!


	4. Familiar Places, Familiar Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The siblings travel to the Underground, where they discuss things that belong in the past and Frisk meets a familiar face. They think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for briefly discussed canonical character death below.
> 
> This felt like it took forever to write, and unfortunately the rest of this seems more difficult. It's pulling me into two different directions, and I'm debating on which one I should take. I'm hoping, either way, it'll be interesting for both you readers and myself.

“Mission to Waterfall, Entry One. We have set forth this morning, after a delicious breakfast of blueberry muffins. We are currently making our way up Mount Ebott’s…well, I don’t know which side, but we’re going up it and making good time. We have seen nothing of interest–”

Frisk couldn’t help but break off their narration as two hands grabbed their arm and pulled them to the side.

“Nothing of interest, save the patch of poison ivy you were going to walk through.” Chara almost sounded bored as they took a few steps away.

Frisk covered the bottom of their phone, trying to block their voice from being recorded. “Thanks.” They went back to narrating their journey, because one day they were going to be both an ambassador and a spelunker, and surely people would be interested in what caves they explored and what they looked like. This would be good practice.

“The weather is clear and warm, the perfect weather for traveling.” They looked around, thinking of anything else they could say that might be interesting and relevant. “We’re heading up an old walking trail that should take us most of the way to the Underground’s New Home entrance, and then–”

Did you see that?” Asriel’s shout made Frisk yelp.

“What?” they asked. They turned their head, searching for what Asriel had seen that had made him yell, but they saw nothing but trees.

“It was this really cool bird!” Asriel was squinting up into a really tall pine tree, a hand over his eyes to block out the fragments of sun visible through the branches. “It was black and white, but it had a lot of red going down its belly!” He jabbed a finger up near the top of the tree. “There it is!”

Frisk squinted up at the tree. They didn’t see anything.

“Oh, yes, there it is!” Toriel reached down to pat Asriel’s head. “Very well spotted, my son!”

“Where is it?” Frisk didn’t want to be the only person who didn’t see it.

“Do you see that slightly broken branch two-thirds of the way up the tree?” Chara asked. They hardly sounded enthused, but they rarely did.

Frisk looked for what Chara was describing, but all the branches looked the same to them. It was especially hard looking while avoiding getting sun in their eyes, twisting and turning their head while moving their hand to block out the too-bright light.

“It’s near the end of that–wait, it’s moving up and to the left. Do you see it yet?” Asriel was standing on the tips of his toes, head twitching slightly as he tried to follow the invisible bird’s movements.

“No.” Frisk looked for the movement, but that bird was hiding behind all the clumps of needles. As their family tried to direct their gaze to where it was heading, Frisk tried their best to follow. However, it seemed they found the location only after the bird had moved.

“Now it’s about three-fourths up the tree–oh, it’s gone.” Asriel’s heels hit earth again. “I’m sorry.”

Frisk shrugged it off. “That’s okay.”

“Come, children,” Toriel said, and Frisk felt a gentle touch on their shoulder. “We must be on our way. We still have quite a long way to go, and we do not wish to be caught on our way back when it is dark.”

The thought perked Frisk back up. The Waterfall statue mystery was more interesting than a bird they could see again. They glanced over, and Asriel too was shaking away the disappointment.

As Toriel led the way up the mountain, Frisk realized that their phone had recorded all that.

They sighed and stopped the recording, then deleted it before they started a new one.

“Mission to Waterfall, entry one.”

* * *

Once they arrived at the New Home entrance, Frisk could see the wisdom of Toriel having woken them so early. It was late morning, almost early noon. If they’d waited much longer, it would’ve been later in the day, which meant less time investigating the statue.

_And we still have a long way to go,_  they told themself as Toriel stepped into the shadow of the cavernous entry. Still, they were most of the way there, and the thought of that caused their soul’s power to strengthen in response.  _It’ll take no time at all with those shortcuts!_ They thought, bolstered by their Save.

And then they remembered quite a few of those shortcuts required a monster’s help. Monsters that might not be among the very few who’d chosen to stay.

“Mom, what if the River Person isn’t at the dock?” Frisk asked, tugging on Toriel’s sleeve.

Toriel giggled, and she took Frisk’s hand in her own. “Do not fear, my child. I have already considered what to do should the monsters in charge of these conveniences have moved to the Surface. I may not know several of the new shortcuts that appeared during my stay in the Ruins, but I know the Underground enough to know the shortest walking trails.”

“So do I!” Asriel said. He picked up his pace, nearly jogging so that he could walk beside them. “There were a lot of shortcuts that you walked right by.”

Frisk glared at Chara. “You could’ve mentioned that there were shortcuts!”

Chara shook their head. “Most of the time, I was barely conscious, and you were unaware of my presence.”

Frisk shook their head as they passed the area where they’d fought Asriel, both as a plant with six human souls and as a visage of an older boss monster after he absorbed those of the entire Underground. “And what about after?”

They shrugged, the motion casual. “I tried to tell you, but you were so focused on following your old trails that I do not think you heard me. Anyways, you were doing well enough on your own.”

Frisk opened their mouth to make a reply, but Asriel interrupted them.

“Mom, you okay?” He didn’t sound panicky, but he was definitely concerned.

Frisk turned toward Toriel. They didn’t see anything quite wrong with her, though her hand was gripping theirs a bit firmer than she usually did.

“Do not fret, my son,” she said, and reached out to ruffle his hair. He stood there and let her do that, but he was still frowning, staring at her.

They passed through a doorway and into Asgore’s throne room. The flowers were still growing, despite no one taking care of them; Frisk could’ve sworn they were doing even better without the watering. But that was probably because there wasn’t anyone there to walk all over them. They loved their father, but they didn’t have to be a gardener to know that a boss monster the size of a small elephant probably damaged the flowers on a regular basis by stepping on them.

“Why did Dad plant the flowers right here?” Frisk asked as they tried their best to weave in between the plants. “Surely he must’ve had somewhere else to put them.”

No one answered. Frisk got a prickly feeling on the back of their neck, the kind that hinted that they’d said something wrong but they weren’t sure what it was.

It was Toriel who broke the silence. “He did not plant these.” Her voice wavered, as if her throat was sore and she was speaking too loud for it to handle. “His throne room was not a garden, originally. They grew here without his input when their seeds scattered. He just decided to let them bloom as they pleased.” She picked up the pace, seemingly unaware that she was crushing flowers under her feet. “We should not linger, little ones.”

Frisk picked their way through the garden, doing their best to avoid stepping on anything and wincing when they failed. “But how did the seeds scatter?” they asked.

Toriel picked up the pace. “They…came here from the Surface,” she said. “When…”

“When Asriel and I came back through the Barrier.” Chara said the words without any emotion on their voice. Their eyes were fixed straight ahead, their expression free from anything beyond tactical disinterest.

Frisk winced. Since Asgore was such an avid gardener, they’d thought he’d designed the throne room to be his garden. But it appeared that golden flowers could grow anywhere, even without dirt.

They glanced over at Asriel. He was staring up at Toriel, clinging to her hand as much as she was to him. Neither of them looked very happy.

Well, what good were Frisk’s powers if they didn’t use them to help where they could?

They let go of Toriel’s hand and stopped walking. Instead, they turned their focus onto their soul, forcing it to reach back. It resisted, but Frisk wasn’t going to give up, certainly not to a part of themself. They imagined their family happier, the question never having been asked, and it filled them with more power, with more determination.

Toriel paused and turned back to them. “My child, do not be upset,” she said, and held her hand out to them again. “You were merely curious.”

Frisk ignored her, willing their soul to keep gaining power, to submit under their will.

“Frisk, wait, don’t–” Asriel’s words cut off suddenly as the scene around Frisk changed. Late morning sky stretched over them instead of a ceiling, the entrance to the Underground yawning in front of them.

“Come along, children,” Toriel said as she started walking toward the hole in the mountainside. “There is still a great deal of traveling we must do if we wish to make it to the statue on schedule.”

Frisk nodded and ran up to take her hand. “Okay.”

Asriel took Toriel’s other hand, leading Chara by theirs. Seeing him reminded Frisk of his reaction to their Load.

He happened to glance over at them, a smile on his face. Then it faltered, and his eyes narrowed at them. Realizing he must’ve seen something on their expression that revealed they’d went back to a save, they smiled, hoping that would stop him from feeling so upset.

It didn’t work. Chara was looking between him and Frisk, but Frisk couldn’t read their expression. They always were good at hiding what they felt.

“Later,” they signed to their siblings. Surely they wouldn’t have wanted their mother to spend the trip more upset than she had to.

Speaking of their mother, Toriel glanced down at them, and then over at Asriel and Chara. She must’ve caught the motion out of the corner of her eye. Asriel’s disapproving frown had shifted into a convincing grin by the time Toriel glanced to her right.

“Is something the matter?” She was frowning now, glancing at her children as if trying to piece together what had happened.

“No, Mom.” Frisk was impressed at how cheerful and carefree Asriel sounded when he clearly wasn’t. “Everything’s fine.”

Toriel remained frowning, but didn’t say anything else as they entered the throne room again. It progressed a lot smoother this time, though her hand still tightened around Frisk’s, and they knew she was clinging to Asriel too. Chara even took Asriel’s hand without her having to say anything to them.

Frisk didn’t dare speak as they progressed through the rest of New Home.

* * *

To Frisk’s delight, the River Person was still at their usual Hotland spot.

“Greetings,” Toriel said as they descended the stairs. “Do you still offer rides on your boat to Waterfall, by any chance?”

“So long as I love to ride in my boat, so long shall I offer,” they said. Frisk had nearly forgotten how sing-songy their voice was, as if speaking to the beat of some strange, otherworldly music only they could hear.

“May we ride with you to Waterfall, if that is the case?”

The hood bobbed in a yes. “It’s such a lovely day for a quick sail.”

Toriel ushered Frisk, Asriel, and Chara into the boat. Frisk immediately settled down on their spot in the stern, facing backward. They were so eager that the boat rocked slightly from how fast they sat down. Chara soon joined them, though they didn’t rock the boat as they sat with great care. Asriel clung to Toriel’s hand as she stood behind the River Person.

“Then let’s be off.” The River Person didn’t even finish their sentence before the boat glided away from the shore.

The River Person began to sing, but before Frisk could listen, Chara tapped their shoulder. Once Frisk was looking at them, they began to sign, each motion and expression as subtle as they could make it.

“You loaded a save.” It wasn’t even a question. Frisk briefly wondered if Asriel had told them when they weren’t looking, or if Chara had figured it out for themself. Either was likely.

“Yeah,” they signed back. A glance backward showed them that neither Asriel nor Toriel were looking at them, so as long as they were discreet with their signing they shouldn’t attract attention.

“For what purpose?” There were times where Frisk was glad they couldn’t read Chara’s real emotions. This was not one of them.

“I said something that upset Mom. I didn’t want her to feel upset more than she had to.” Frisk resisted the urge to look over their shoulder again. That would make their conversation seem even more suspicious.

Chara’s facial expression finally changed. It was a single, raised eyebrow. Frisk flinched; that was never a good sign.

“It was only a little load!” Frisk resisted the urge to sign faster. “Only a few minutes back and only so Mom wouldn’t spend the rest of the trip upset!”

Chara sniffed. Frisk never knew how they could put so much disapproval in such a quiet, barely audible noise.

“I’m just trying to make sure everyone has a good time.” Frisk was sure, if they were speaking aloud, that Chara would surely feel pity at their voice and stop looking at them like that, at least for a little bit.

“I know you do what you think is the best for everyone,” Chara said, “but you do not have to load every time you make a mistake, or someone is less than perfectly happy.”

Frisk felt their face scrunch up as they thought about what Chara was saying. “But I have the power.” They shook their head, trying to figure out why Chara was so upset. “Why shouldn’t I use it to make everyone happy?”

A large bump jolted Frisk out of their thoughts. They glanced behind them, only to see that the boat had arrived in Waterfall.

“We’ve arrived.” The River Person hummed, still caught up in whatever melody had taken them. “Please come again sometime.”

Frisk jumped to their feet and followed Toriel and Asriel off the boat, wondering why their ability to do things perfect was so bad when it had helped save Asriel and Chara.

* * *

As it turned out, the little bird that’d always flown Frisk across the gap of water was, indeed, still there and carrying people from shore to shore, but the Ferry who’d paid them to ride on their back wasn’t.

Which left them to take the small raft.

“Are you sure it’ll be able to carry us?” Frisk stared down at the small square of wood, summoned from the other docks with Toriel’s magic.

The answer they received was a gentle ruffle of their hair. “So long as we go one at a time, my child.” She didn’t look at them as she said it; her eyes were fixed on the darkness which hid the other dock from their view. “I shall go first, to make sure everything is fine on the other side, and then I shall send the raft back. Remember, so long as you ride the raft one at a time everything will go smoothly.”

Frisk nodded, but being left alone on the dark didn’t scare them at all. When they were taking that route for the first time that they could remember, they were terrified, but now they were older, and the darkness wasn’t as intimidating.

No, it was more the idea of sinking that Frisk had been worried about.

Toriel stepped down onto the raft. “I shall see you all shortly,” she said, and was carried off into the darkness.

“Do you want to go next?” Asriel’s voice was surprisingly loud, carrying over the sound of the water. “Chara and I are fine waiting here.”

Frisk shook their head. “Nah, I’m not scared of waiting.” And to prove it, when the raft arrived back at the dock they stayed right where they were. And they stayed put again when it arrived after Asriel’s departure.

“Perhaps it would be best if you went along first,” Chara said, giving the raft a sweeping gesture for Frisk to go ahead and get on.

Frisk shook their head. Why did everyone think they were scared of staying there alone? “Nah, I’m fine.”

Chara tilted their head ever so slightly, their expression disagreeing with what Frisk had said.

“Really, you should go. Mom’ll get worried if we stay here arguing about it much longer.” Frisk was surprised she hadn’t already come to investigate the holdup. They guessed it was probably only Asriel’s insistence that she hadn’t.

Chara sighed through their nose and shrugged. “If you insist.” They stepped onto the raft and was swallowed up into the darkness.

For such a deserted area, this corner of Waterfall was surprisingly loud. Waves made a  _schlop, schlop_  sound as they hit the dock’s legs. It was pretty much the only reason Frisk knew it was there at all, and it wasn’t just wood projected into some kind of void. While there was light enough to see, whenever they carefully peeked over the dock’s side they couldn’t see any reflections, not of themself, not of the dock, not even light off the waves.

They wondered, if they were to fall in, would the water pull them under? It sounded like it could.

They stepped away from the side.

The raft still wasn’t back from the other dock. Was Chara okay? Did they fall off? Frisk knew that if that had happened, Chara could swim, but how far away was the shore? Frisk knew that there was some kind of land nearby–Undyne had once chased them from it–but could Chara see to swim there, or would they be searching the void until they sank?

Frisk began to pace, because it was taking forever for the raft to return and they were impatient to see what the matter was, but stopped when they came face to face with a monster.

Their first thought was that they looked like Monster Kid, the kid they’d traveled with through Waterfall either once or several times, depending on how you viewed it. But this kid wasn’t them; Monster Kid didn’t have sickly gray scales, and they had three spikes running down their head and neck, not two like this monster.

“Hi,” Frisk said, because it seemed rude not to acknowledge them, even if they’d come to stand next to them without saying anything.

The monster child’s tailtip twitched. Monster Kid always did that if they were surprised. Maybe they were the same kind of monster or something.

“I thought I told you to forget me,” the kid said. Their voice was so faint that Frisk could barely hear it over the water.

That statement had Frisk searching their memory. “We’ve met before?” They thought back. They were fairly certain their last trip through the Underground hadn’t brought them past another armless raptor monster.

The gray child looked away. “Don’t try to remember. It’s happier that way.”

Frisk immediately shook their head. “That’s not true!” How could it be if it made this kid unhappy? They doubled down on thinking about where they’d met this kid before, because no one deserved to be forgotten.

And then they realized that yes, they did remember meeting this kid. Sort of. They couldn’t really remember much. The kid speaking them, sounding sad, although the words they said flitted out of their reach when they tried to remember them; a pink umbrella in their hands, held out over the kid; walking away, their umbrella still in hand, only to look back and see the kid wasn’t there anymore.

“I remember!” Frisk must’ve said it too loud because the kid flinched back, and they made the effort to control their volume. “We met here before, didn’t we?”

The kid’s reply was even quieter than before, almost lost to the water. “I told you not to remember.”

“Why are you so upset about me remembering about you?” Frisk asked. It couldn’t be nice, to be forgotten. Why was their new friend so desperate for them to forget?

“Don’t remember.” The kid’s tail was curling around their own ankle. Frisk was reminded of how Asriel would hold his own hand when he was nervous sometimes, especially if there was nothing to fiddle with.

“I can’t exactly forget now that we’ve met,” Frisk said. They’d only really forgotten that they’d met the kid before because of the true reset, as Asriel had called it. It worked so well to reset everything that it even had worked on Frisk's memories, if only for a while, and made a lot of stuff they’d done before blurred. Most of what they remembered were the “important” bits of the journey, the parts that couldn’t be changed; meeting Toriel, Mettaton’s introduction, confronting their father. They’d been lucky, remembering this kid.

And then they remembered that true resets should’ve worked on this kid’s memories, too.

“How did you remember meeting me?” Their heart raced, because if they remembered meeting Frisk, then could they remember other resets? Resets in which they were in a worse place when they’d woken up in the flowers?

“Please forget…”

The soft thud of wood against wood made Frisk look down at the water. The raft had finally arrived.

“Come with me,” Frisk said as they turned to face the kid.

The kid wasn’t there.


	5. Ghosts of the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new mystery has brought itself to the siblings’ attention, and Frisk has their doubts about how soon it will be solved. But will their trip to the statue uncover anything else?

As the raft glided back into view, with Frisk standing on top, the tension left Asriel’s body in one great sigh. He’d been worried about not sending Frisk over first, and had been even more concerned when Chara arrived on the docks next. He knew Frisk got worried when they were alone, even if they didn’t admit it.

And then he saw the look in their eyes. They were frightened, more than they usually were when they were left alone. The kind of frightened they were when something serious had happened, when they felt helpless and powerless.

An impression flashed before his eyes; their face, pale in the light of a television screen, staring up and up at him.

He fought the urge to curl up at the memory and instead focused on the fact that his sibling was terrified.

Toriel was the first to speak to them as the raft arrived at the dock, of course.

“Frisk, my child, what is wrong?” She barely had to pull them into a hug; they stepped right into her embrace, burying their face into her dress. “Do not worry; we are with you now.” She stroked their hair, careful that her claws didn’t scratch them.

Asriel glanced over at Chara, whose face was slightly tenser from concern. For a brief moment he considered that they’d left Frisk like this, but they’d promised to be a better person. And Asriel knew they’d meant it. They wouldn’t push their sibling to wait alone in Waterfall to “toughen them up” as they might have done before their revival.

“There was a kid.” Asriel almost doubted what he heard, Frisk’s voice was so muffled. “I just turned around and they were there.”

“Did they do anything?” Asriel was sure only he could hear the slight edge to Toriel’s voice. The only way that a kid could truly upset her was to hurt one of her own.

A swish of rustling clothes was her response as Frisk shook their head. “No, I don’t think they meant to scare me. They were scared themself.”

Asriel could almost see Toriel’s hackles smooth over. “Are they still there, or are they coming here?”

Frisk shook their head again, this time taking a small step back. Asriel couldn’t help but lay a hand on their shoulder, hoping it was comforting them as much as it was him.

“They were telling me to forget,” Frisk said, and from how slowly they were speaking Asriel could guess this was what was bothering them the most. “But then the raft came, and I looked away for a second and they were gone.”

Toriel bit her lip and stared into the darkness that hid the dock where they’d come from. She was clearly wondering what to do about it, because it was clearly upsetting Frisk, but at the same time would there be any point in looking for them?

“I do not like the idea of leaving a child alone and in distress,” she said. Her eyes flickered, just slightly, in his and Chara’s direction. Asriel stepped closer to her and reached for her hand. “But you are clearly distressed as well, my child. Since there are more monsters present in the Underground than I accounted for beforehand, there must be some form of system set up for situations such as these. We shall contact them and have them handle it so you will be able to calm down. Is that acceptable?”

Frisk looked down at their feet. Asriel could see their face shift to something unreadable. He fought down the irritation that he couldn’t read their expressions quite as well as Chara’s and focused more on reading it. They looked…almost thoughtful, though the corners of their eyes still seemed a bit tense. Maybe they were still on edge? Or irritated? He kind of wanted to ask them, but that would probably upset them, and Toriel wouldn’t like that.

“Can we go look for them ourselves instead?” they asked, speaking slowly as if unsure they truly wanted to.

Asriel wanted to bite his lip, but forced himself to stay relaxed. Sure, he wanted to see the statue, but if Frisk thought the kid they met was in trouble, then shouldn’t they at least try to help them, even if they were on their way to figure out something no one else had learned?

Toriel shook her head. “You were so very pale when you came over here, child,” she said, and gave their shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I know you wish to help others, but it should not come at the cost of your peace of mind. Rest assured, the child will be found and offered any assistance they might need.”

Frisk nodded, their gaze turning to their shoes. Asriel was pretty sure they were irritated and had wanted to search for the kid themself. They never were one to let others do things for them, no matter how hard, whenever possible.

“Very well.” Toriel patted Frisk’s head, then glanced over at both Asriel and Chara. “Are you both ready to set off?”

Chara nodded. They looked remarkably calm at first, but between the longer than usual breaths and slight tenseness to their muscles they were doing their best to calm themself from…nervousness? Nervousness. “Yes. Are you, Asriel?”

Asriel nodded.

Toriel still seemed nervous, but she took the lead, Frisk’s hand in one of hers. Chara took theirs as they passed them, and Asriel trotted to grab their mother’s other hand.

As they continued down the corridors of Waterfall, he wondered why the kid waited until Frisk was alone to approach them.

* * *

 

The moment Toriel was distracted, talking to a monster heading the Underground Guard, Frisk tapped on Asriel’s shoulder to get his attention. They’d apparently already let Chara know, given that their sibling was already focusing their attention on them.

Frisk immediately began to sign once he turned around, arms moving with an energy that was almost frantic. “The kid I saw at Waterfall–they appeared once there before, in one of my resets, but I can’t remember seeing them in any others.”

Chara tilted their head before they signed back. “You do remember you hardly remember anything after we use a true reset, do you not?” Their eyebrows turned up slightly, a hint of skepticism.

Frisk nodded, hair flying all over. “But I’m pretty sure we’ve never run into them in any other timelines, even the ones where I did backtrack there. I would remember a monster that looked just like Monster Kid, except all gray and with fewer spikes on their head.”

Chara shrugged. “Well, then, if you are sure you did not see them, then I shall have to take your word for it.”

 

Frisk turned to Asriel. “Azzy, did you ever see anyone like them during your resets?”

Asriel bit his lip, thinking back to his own resets as he raised his hands in preparation to sign. “Not that I can remember.” And he was pretty sure he’d remember someone like that. He’d memorized everything about every single monster he could find, from what made them the happiest to what broke them the fastest, every route they took to go shopping in every circumstance, everything.

Frisk frowned in a mixture of disappointment and concern. “Really? Nothing?”

Asriel shook his head. “Nothing.” If he’d found even a hint of something that changed even when he didn’t make different choices, well…

He internally winced. Frisk would’ve never gotten the chance to fall down and gain the reset abilities for themself, most likely.

“How about anyone that remembered true resets?” Their gestures were sharp, almost frantic in their haste.

Asriel shrugged. “Besides me, no one else.” The thought of someone who knew what happened in Frisk’s resets, and probably remembered his…

It was unsettling, to say the least.

Frisk shifted their weight toward the heels of their feet, biting their lip. They raised their hands to sign.

“Chara, Frisk, Asriel, you may lay any worries to rest.” Toriel’s voice made Frisk twitch, and even Chara looked like they’d tensed from the surprise. Asriel was sure that only his thousands of resets’ worth of experience hiding his emotions stopped him from doing the same. Toriel paused as she glanced between the three. “Oh, I did not mean to startle you.”

“It is fine, Mother.” Chara shook out their hands and folded them behind their back, their muscles relaxing as they seemed to reassure themself everything was fine. “The Underground Guard is on the case, I take it?”

Toriel’s face relaxed. “Yes. They say they did not receive any reports of distressed children, but they plan to send their best after this lost one to make sure that they are taken to safety and reunited with any family they might have lost, if possible.”

Frisk nodded, but it was so faltering that Asriel knew that they weren’t very confident that the kid would be found and helped.

But what else could they do? Toriel was already concerned about how seeing the distressed child had upset Frisk, and wouldn’t change her mind about joining the search themselves. And if they all snuck away…

No, the only choice that would help everyone the most would be to let the Underground Guard do their job. That way, if the child could be helped, they would get it from more experienced monsters. Toriel would be happy, and Frisk could relax knowing that they were safe.

The problem with the kid remembering their resets?

He put that aside for the moment. It wasn’t like anyone could do anything about that, right? And the important thing was that the kid was found and helped. Finding out why they remembered, or if they planned on telling anyone else, would have to wait.

“I was thinking,” Toriel said as she took Frisk’s and Chara’s hand, and Asriel took Chara’s, “perhaps we should head home instead of stopping in Waterfall.”

Asriel’s soul pulsed, a flurry of alarm and protest running through his body. Guilt soon followed; Frisk clearly had been alarmed by the encounter, and still was, and wasn’t it selfish to feel disappointed in not being able to try and answer some questions when they might need to take a break?

A swish of movement drew his attention over to Frisk, who was shaking their head in a panic. “I’m fine, Mom! I still want to go! Please?”

Toriel’s jaw was still tense as she seemed to consider their plea against what she felt was right for them. “I do not know, child. You seemed very upset and concerned. You should not push yourself to do something we can always return for.”

Asriel glanced over at them. While they looked quite upset still, their face tense and creased into a frown, their eyes were bright and pleading.

“But Mom, really, I’m fine! And we walked all this way and everything.” Frisk glanced over at him and Chara, eyes wide in a silent plea.

And if they said they were fine, and looked like they were okay, and would be disappointed if he refused to help, wouldn’t protesting be selfish?

“I think Frisk’s okay, Mom. Really.” He smiled up at her, seeing her hesitation start to falter just the slightest bit.

“It would be a waste to have walked all this way without doing what we set out to do in the first place.” Asriel frowned when he heard the hesitance in Chara’s voice, and turned his head to face them. They were staring at Frisk, looking tense. It almost looked like they were judging how wary they should be.

But that was ridiculous, right? Chara had no reason to feel wary around Frisk, not when the two already knew each other’s worst secrets, right?

He’d just have to ask Chara when they were alone.

At the very least, Toriel relaxed slightly, in resignation rather than feeling reassured that Frisk was all right. “Very well, then, Frisk. But please promise me that you will let me know if you change your mind, at any time?”

Frisk nodded. “Yeah, Mom, I will!” They beamed up at her, and Asriel could pretend that they didn’t still look a bit tense around the eyes.

* * *

 

It didn’t take that much longer to reach where the statue sat. It wasn’t playing its song, but that was only because its umbrella had slumped over to its left, leaving it uncovered from the fat droplets of water that dropped down from the hole in the ceiling. Frisk quickly fixed that, and its chime once again began to echo through the halls.

Toriel grinned at the statue that was just a couple heads shorter than her, slumped as it was. “You always did love this song, did you not, Asriel?”

Asriel nodded. He vaguely remembered being a toddler and asking his mom to hum him this song, over and over, and Toriel would patiently pick him up and do so. And while he didn’t actually remember it, she’d told him many times she’d used it as a lullaby when he was a baby.

She’d hummed it to Chara, too, when a nightmare woke them up during the night and Asriel had gone to her for help. It’d been one of the few times he’d actually seen them cry. And while Chara always hid their sadness from others, Toriel gotten in the habit of just humming when she was around them, “just because.” It was a habit he’d taken up as well. And on the first anniversary of Chara’s adoption, he’d had a craftsperson make two engraved lockets which played the song when wound up. Maybe it sounded a bit different, but it hadn’t mattered at all to Chara, who wore it every day and kept it in its gift box at night to protect it from harm, even though it’d been especially enchanted not to rust and to resist breaking.

And when he was nothing but a flower, wearing a different name and identity like he’d worn a different body, having distanced himself from his family because that was a mess he’d learned not to get into, it’d been a source of comfort for him to come to this statue and listen to its song. The few times it’d been playing since Undyne chose to make it part of her puzzle, at least. She’d decided that leaving it running would be too obvious a clue, and so any time it had played it was due to his meddling.

He glanced over at Chara and grinned when he saw them resting a finger on their locket. They looked so relaxed, their eyes slightly unfocused, he knew they weren’t really aware of the gesture.

He glanced over at Frisk, but they were staring at the tunnel from where they’d come, as if trying to decide… something. They were definitely thoughtful about something other than the statue.

He didn’t have to be good at reading people to know what was occupying their thoughts.

Asriel was kind of worried about the strange kid too, but he was more concerned about his family right now, how Toriel’s eyes were tense around the corners, about how Frisk was no longer excited about something they’d been looking forward to for several days, about how Chara’s posture seemed more forced than usual.

Guilt pulsed through his body. Shouldn’t a good monster be worried equally about both? Sure, his family meant a lot to him, and he really didn’t want them hurting, but the strange kid was important too. He shouldn’t be prioritizing one person over another, because that wasn’t what good people did, and anyways, didn’t Asgore once tell him that the whole Underground should be like family to him since he was a member of the royal family?

Not that he was acing the whole “future king” thing anyways, he reminded himself with a hidden wince. What was one more failure to the pile?

It was Frisk taking a step closer to the statue that reminded Asriel that they were where they needed to be, and there were things to do rather than sit and worry.

Frisk squinted up at the hole in the ceiling, where a faint light filtered down with trickles of water. “Where’s that light coming from?”

Well, Asriel might not be a good future king, but he did know the Underground better than anyone else.

“It’s from a tunnel that leads from a spring, and the whole thing is, like, made out of those glowing rocks.” A beautiful little one, too; the walls were always glimmering with water which reflected the glowing stone that was abundant there. It never grew too full for him to visit, either, since the tunnel prevented it from flooding too badly. “Sort of like the fake stars in the Wishing Room, but brighter. I went to see what was up there when I was, you know, a flower.”

He winced as that seemed to kill the mood. Frisk’s face creased with guilt, pain flashed across Toriel’s face, and Chara’s face grew fixed even more into a forced smile as they suddenly seemed unable to look at him.

_I’ve got to fix this,_  he thought, taking one of his hands in his other and giving a squeeze. But there wasn’t exactly a guide to cheering people up after you reminded them of your original revived state.

Just laughing it off and saying, “It’s okay, everyone!” wouldn’t exactly cut it. His mother would likely try to calm him down when he should be trying to cheer her up, Chara would pretend it hadn’t affected them when it clearly had, and Frisk would be apologizing for something that wasn’t even their fault.

_Or resetting so it never happens._

The thought was so angry he couldn’t help but glance around, terrified someone saw the rage flash across his face.

It didn’t seem like they had, but if they did…

He had to get a handle on his emotions. He was the master of his thoughts, and his thoughts were not the master of him; he should know better than to let anger through. He had to be better.

“So the more likely route is that its creator either made it here and abandoned it, or they or others brought it in from elsewhere.” Chara’s voice broke through his thoughts, and he could’ve hugged and thanked them for it.

Asriel fought back the urge to do that, though, since it would’ve let everyone know something was up. Instead, he nodded and said, maybe a little bit too loudly, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking!” He turned to Toriel, who still looked concerned. “What do you think, Mom?”

She blinked, probably interrupted from darker thoughts, and frowned in thought rather than concern. “You are on the right track, children.” She squinted at the statue. “However, if it was moved from elsewhere, it could not have been from Home, as no monster saw it being removed from there. And while stone was most frequently used from Home’s expansions, not a single shipment was moved from there to elsewhere.”

Frisk blinked. “I thought no one knew anything about the statue!” They glanced at Asriel as if trying to convey how awesome this was, not knowing he’d heard the explanation before in a previous reset.

“Nothing of substance on which you could write your History essay.” Chara’s gaze was fixed on the statue, still tense from before.

“We did look into its origins when scouts searching for a location in which we could build New Home came across it.” Toriel stared at the statue, her gaze a little unfocused. “As far as we could tell, very, very few monsters lived outside of Home at the time, and none of them claimed ownership of the statue. Many were even surprised to hear there was one at all, given no other examples of art appeared in the Underground before the exodus to New Home.” She ducked her head slightly. “It is possible that one or more of them could have lied, to distance themself from it or to protect the privacy of the one who created it, but as it stands, not a single monster had any information to offer us.” She gave them a rueful smile. “It is likely a mystery to which we might never have a full answer.”

The look on Frisk’s face made Asriel wonder if this was an answer they’d accept.

* * *

 

They stayed for a while in Waterfall, but didn’t learn anything new. If there had been any hint of a signature, it’d long since been worn away by the rain, as it’d eroded quite a bit since its creation. Toriel had stopped them from turning over the statue to check there, but said that in the investigations centuries ago, there hadn’t been anything, just smooth stone. Frisk had had Asriel use his fire magic to illuminate the shadowy cavity of its hood, but beyond the glimmer of buried musical mechanisms nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

So when Toriel announced that it was time to start heading back if they wished to be home before bedtime, he bit down the protest that they hadn’t found anything yet and accepted it. After all, while he felt the urge to stay down there and tear the statue apart with his own hands to learn more, there wasn’t anything left to discover. They probably could learn more from a book than poking and prodding at the statue’s worn surface.

Frisk, though, had begged for a few more minutes, and then for even more few minutes, until Toriel finally declined.

And so the statue was left in the darkness, playing its tune for an audience that wasn’t there.

Asriel’s disappointment of their trip’s results, though, was soon replaced with the relief of being home. He’d quickly excused himself to change into his pajamas. He was never more grateful that his comfiest set was clean and ready to wear, and if anyone would find it weird that he buried his nose into them to catch a better whiff of the lavender scent that clung to them, then they weren’t around to see.

After that, it was time for journaling. It’d been something his therapist had suggested he do, something to help him express his thoughts in a place he didn’t have to fear judgement.

The thing was, he still kind of worried. He knew none of his family or friends would read it, but putting it down meant it existed, somewhere in the world, and maybe in the future, long after he’d turned to dust, someone would pick it up and read through it and judge him by what he’d written.

But he wanted to improve, and his therapist said that this might help with that, so he resigned himself to burning it before he fell down.

He caught himself before he just wrote down  _“Nice day today!”_  and chewed on his pencil. Not too strongly, because fangs broke wood easier than human teeth, but enough to help him feel like he was gathering his thoughts.

Instead, he jotted down what had happened. About how excited he’d been about getting to examine the statue firsthand, only for the excitement to fade once Frisk had reset and then after Frisk encountered that strange monster kid.

He tapped the eraser on his lips as he stared at the last sentence, wondering if he should elaborate more on his thoughts about that. How he disliked how they’d scared his sibling, and was afraid of their knowing what happened in previous resets, even if they hadn’t said anything about it to anyone else.

_“There’s no right or wrong way to journal,”_ the therapist had said, but then why did it always feel like he was doing it wrong?

He decided that if it was still bothering him later he’d write about it then, and continued on until he finally wrote that the trip had been a failure, sadly.

Asriel had just slipped his journal back into its drawer when there came a knock on the door. Three soft raps; that had to be Frisk.

He was proven right when he opened the door and saw his sibling standing there, rubbing their arm and looking away.

“Frisk, are you okay?” he asked, because although they were clearly worried, it’d be kind of awkward if they went off script, right?

Frisk puffed out a quick sigh and met his eyes. “Yeah, I’m just worried.”

“About that kid from Waterfall, right?” He guided them over to his desk chair and let them sit down while he took the bed. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll find them.”

Frisk hunched their shoulders in what looked like a partial shrug. “Kind of about that.” They bit their lip and grabbed at their pajama sleeve, like they wanted to hold their own hand but were too nervous even for that. “How can someone remember what happened after a true reset? I barely do, and you don’t remember mine, either!” They let go of their sleeve and picked at his chair’s armrest. “And other monsters only had déjà vu of regular resets, at best. And never past true resets.”

Asriel nodded. “That is kind of weird.” He went to scratch at his head and then winced when his claws dug into a tender spot near his budding horns. He settled for resting his hands on his knees and then weaving his fingers together.

“Weird? It’s impossible!” They bit their lip and glanced at the door, probably realizing they half shouted. And right on cue, Toriel’s claws clicked their way across the floorboards in their direction.

“Is everything all right, children?” Toriel opened the door to glance in, her face drawn with worry.

Frisk nodded and grinned. “Everything’s all right, Mom! I was just getting a little too worked up.”

Asriel fixed his expression into a smile, beating down the guilty feeling about lying. It wasn’t like she didn’t know about their powers, and he knew she suspected just why he, Frisk, and Chara were so ashamed of how they’d used it in the Underground, but it wasn’t exactly a topic anyone felt comfortable about speaking. And anyways, it wasn’t lying, not really. It was just not saying anything, right?

Toriel looked between them, looking torn and concerned, before she nodded. “Very well, then. Perhaps you should change the subject into something more relaxing? It is nearly your bedtimes, after all.” After a small smile that was too tense to be truly genuine, she disappeared down the hall, to her own room.

Frisk’s long exhale calmed Asriel’s own nerves slightly. Not the guilt, no, but at least he didn’t feel quite as on edge.

“Thanks,” they said, and sounded truly grateful.

Asriel shook his head. “It’s nothing, really.”

Another knock came at the door. Solid and loud, but not aggressive at all. It was probably Chara.

As Asriel guessed, Chara was standing by the doorframe. “May I come in?” they asked with an incline of their head.

Asriel glanced at Frisk, but they didn’t seem upset. They’d perked up, even. “Sure, Chara. Come on in!”

Chara walked in and glanced between him and Frisk. “I assume you were discussing the child you saw earlier today?”

Frisk nodded. “Yeah.”

“Hmm.” Chara sat down on Asriel’s bed, eyes half closed as they seemed to think about this. “It is a bizarre situation. But it is clearly possible, if the child you met was telling the truth about remembering you.”

Frisk shrugged and tugged at a lock of their hair. “They remembered me before I remembered them. They just reminded me that I forgot.”

Chara nodded. Their gaze was a little unfocused, but Asriel was pretty sure they were just thinking and not zoning out. “So not only did we not uncover anything about the statue, but we also took on a different mystery to which we have no answers.”

Asriel picked at some fur on his ear. “Uh, not yet, at least. The Underground Guard might turn up something.”

Frisk snorted. “If the kid vanished from right next at me in one second, then how will they find them?” The annoyance crackled out from their slump in the chair.

Asriel decided not to push further.

“Let us not dwell on something that might not come to pass.” Chara smoothed out a wrinkle on their pajama shirt. “Until your outburst, I was considering a way to look more into the statue’s mysteries, and I have an idea.”

Frisk still looked rebellious, but Asriel would be lying if he said his interest wasn’t sparked. “What is it?”

“Alphys is part of the Volunteers of Digitizing Monsterkind’s Knowledge, is she not?” Chara paused, as if waiting for anyone to contradict them. “Surely if we asked her if there were any books regarding the Waterfall Statue, she might be able to locate them, or find someone who would.” They shrugged. “While they did not solve its mysteries, perhaps they hold information we happened to miss while there.”

Asriel allowed himself to grin. “Golly, Chara, that sounds like a good idea.” He glanced at Frisk. They still didn’t look cheered up, but at least the idea had gotten their attention.

“When do you think we can see her?” they asked.

“Well, the weekend’s in a couple days.” Which meant they got to stay at Asgore’s, so long as important government stuff didn’t pop up, but since Frisk hadn’t needed to act as honorary ambassador recently, it was probably unlikely. “We can ask if Alphys and Undyne can come have dinner with us or something.” While Asgore always did his best to set weekends aside for only them, Asriel knew he wouldn’t say no to company, especially company they’d specifically requested. He was friends with Alphys and Undyne, anyway, so it’d work out for everyone.

“It sounds as if we have a start of a plan.” Chara stood up and brushed off their pajamas, and then smoothed the creases on the blankets they’d made. “It is settled, then. Now, shall we head to bed?”

Frisk got up, the chair squeaking as they did so, and rolled their eyes. “Fine.” They didn’t make a move to exit the room, though. “If you hear anything about the kid, will you tell me?”

Asriel laughed. “Of course, but I’m pretty sure we’ll hear it the same time?”

Frisk gave him the most unimpressed look, and Chara raised an eyebrow. He had to laugh in embarrassment.

“Okay, I’m a bit nosy. But I’m trying to be better!” He wasn’t really a fan of anyone snooping around his past, although he kind of deserved it. And now that he was trying to distance himself from his past, he was trying to extend the same courtesy to others and not be a nosy little snoop, as painful as not knowing everything was sometimes.

Frisk giggled. It was weak and ended within a second, but it was something.

“Good night!” they said, and left.

Chara, though, did not leave. They were staring at the door, and Asriel could sense that they were tense.

“What’s wrong?” Asriel asked.

Chara shrugged less fluidly than their normal gestures. “Do not worry yourself over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” The thought of them thinking that they meant less to their own family than anyone else… It filled him with sadness.

And guilt.

“You’re my sibling. I want to help you.” He really, really did. He’d let them down by not stopping their plan to save the monsters with their own soul so many years ago. He wanted to make it right.

Chara’s smile twitched. For a moment, he thought they looked sadder, even if the expression was more genuine. Then their expression was fixed back to the normal blank grin, and they clasped their hands together.

“It is of no consequence.” They shook their head and glanced at the door again. “Something crossed my mind earlier, when Frisk loaded their save.”

Asriel bit his lip, recalling how wary Chara had looked at Frisk earlier at the statue. He was pretty sure that Frisk hadn’t loaded another save back in the Underground, but perhaps Chara had spotted something he’d missed?

_Impossible,_  his mind supplied, and he squashed the thought and the accompanying envy.

“Yeah, you did kind of seem on edge a bit, back there.” He stopped himself from picking at furs on his arm and instead grabbed his own hand. “It must not have been a very good thought.”

They shook their head. “No, it was not. However, it was only a passing theory I doubt could ever be proved.” They inclined their head. “Therefore, not important. I shall see you in the morning, then?”

Asriel sensed that if he dug deeper into this “unimportant theory” they’d be upset, and he’d learn nothing more.

He decided to leave it for another time.

“Yeah.” He half-raised a hand in farewell. “Good night.”

Chara clasped their hands behind their back. “And to you, as well.” And they walked out the door.

Asriel sighed and turned toward his bed. He might not know the future events of the world anymore, but he knew enough to predict that getting to sleep tonight would be difficult.

He consoled himself with the thought that maybe Undyne and Alphys could provide more information on the Waterfall Statue, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this took longer than I'd hoped to write, between a lot of obligations popping up, a shifting of interests, and a new distraction in the form of that survey, but this chapter is done!


	6. Something Weird in Waterfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a chat with Undyne and assistance from Alphys brings up the discussion of vanishing acts, and what started out as a mere mystery snowballs into something more serious.

“You burn down your house once, and no one ever lets you live it down,” Undyne said as she sat at the dinner table, her arms crossed and face set in a glower.

Alphys reached over to pat her hand, which caused Undyne’s face to soften. Chara knew that expression; they had seen Asgore and Toriel regard each other in that way before their plan had ruined everything. “Uh, well, it was kind of memorable?” Alphys gave Undyne a small smile.

Frisk giggled, their face aglow with undiluted mischief. “It was.”

Undyne turned to face them and pointed a finger toward them in exaggerated accusation. “I wouldn’t say anything if I was you, punk! I wasn’t the one in charge of the stove!”

Not that it would have mattered, Chara knew. They had the vaguest hint of a memory of Frisk’s hand hovering indecisively over a knob on the oven, the smell of gas, fire, and burning dry noodles, and a blue and scaly hand all but slapping theirs away. It was one of the events of which Frisk could never alter the outcome, no matter how much they tried. If they visited Undyne on Papyrus’s request, her house would become victim to her cooking lesson.

“I promise I trust you not to repeat the mistake,” Asgore said as he ushered Asriel out of the kitchen and to the table. “However, you are both guests, and it would be rude to make you assist in making a meal.”

“It ain’t like you’re making us scrub the floors, big guy!” Undyne tried to put Asgore in a headlock of friendship, despite the fact that he was more than a few heads taller than her.

Asgore staggered slightly from the gesture, but stayed on his feet. An impressive feat. Despite that, he stood there and let her noogie his hair, nearly knocking the crown off his head and looking unsure of what to do in response.

“And, uh, helping out would be the least we could do for inviting us over for dinner,” Alphys said as she tapped her claws against the table.

“Not to mention that it’s a tradition of bonding and teamwork!” Undyne bellowed this with as much enthusiasm as when her favorite ship in her favorite anime had been confirmed.

“That is very true,” Asgore said as he gently freed himself from the headlock and took a seat, “but you have both done so much for myself and the Kingdom of Monsters. Undyne, you have served us all well as head of the Royal Guard, and you continue to aid as head of the New Royal Guard.”

Not that hard to do, in Chara’s opinion; monsters always were better behaved than humans.

Asgore turned to Alphys. “And Alphys, your work as Royal Scientist saved lives of monsters we thought could not be helped, and your current project will certainly help future monsters with accessing knowledge. And that is not even mentioning your assistance with my social media.”

Alphys chuckled weakly, her scales starting to tinge themselves red. “N–no need to thank me.”

Considering that all Asgore ever really posted were updates along the lines of “Perfect weather for a game of catch,” “The birdsong in my garden is quite lovely this morning,” or the perennial favorite of meme creators, “Nice day today!” Chara was inclined to agree with Alphys.

They still favorited all his posts.

“Speaking of helping,” Frisk jumped in, shifting closer to the edge of their seat, “Azzy, Chara, and I were wondering if you could help us.”

Chara reached over to grab their cup of tea. Whatever Undyne’s and Alphys’s responses were, they wanted to brace themself, and one such as them could not brace themself without a sip of chocolate tea.

“Of course we’ll help, punks!” Undyne’s fist met table surface with a thud so loud Chara could feel the impact in their chest. They became very glad they had picked up their teacup, as everyone else’s drinks had sloshed over their cups’ sides and into the saucers in which they nestled. She gave everyone at the table as apologetic a smile she could muster before continuing, “So, let’s hear that question!”

Frisk nodded and leaned forward. “Has anything weird happened in Waterfall?”

In retrospect, Chara should not have been surprised. The strange monster child’s appearance, disappearance, and reset-proof memories had been weighing on them, as was the current failure of locating them. However, Chara had still been slightly expecting them to have asked the question about the statue first. Chara glanced at Asriel and saw that he was staring at them with a shocked expression.

Undyne snorted. “Kid, you’re going to have to be a he–” her gaze flickered toward Asgore–“heck of a lot more specific. I could tell you all about the time everyone was terrified of a strange echoing noise coming from some out of the way corner of the place, only for me to find it was just Napstablook playing their tunes a little too loud.”

Frisk’s mouth turned up in a small smile, but their intense trepidation and curiosity returned swiftly. “Well, something weird happened when we went to Waterfall a few days ago. I saw this strange kid. They looked kind of like Monster Kid, but they were all gray and white. Like, no color to them at all. And they had these big pupil-less eyes. And they were missing a spike on the back of their head.”

Undyne blinked and exchanged a look with Alphys.

“They were panicking, and I don’t think they heard what I was saying very well.” Frisk set their teacup back down before wrapping their fingers around the edges of their seat. “They wanted me to forget them. But when I turned around for three seconds, they disappeared.”

“That must have concerned you quite a lot,” Asgore said. He looked very much like he wanted to give them a hug, but dared not for fear that he would do more harm than good.

“Y–Yeah!” Alphys fiddled with her glasses in a vain but commendable attempt to keep them from sliding halfway down her nose.

Undyne crossed her arms, and she frowned at her teacup as if it had been personally responsible for Frisk’s fright. “Yeah, that sounds weird all right,” she said. She looked up and smiled, although with how tense she looked she seemed more like she was baring her fangs at them. “I haven’t heard anything about missing children, but I’ll keep my eye out for them! And have a word with them about not scaring my bestie!”

Frisk shook their head so fast Chara idly wondered if it had given them a headache. “I don’t think they meant to scare me.” They spoke so quickly Chara had barely been able to understand them. “You don’t have to say anything to them.”

Undyne opened her mouth, and Chara could see Asriel tense.

Fortunately, Frisk jumped in, perhaps sensing that Undyne might not necessarily change her mind. “We have another question about Waterfall we’ve been wanting to ask you, too.” They nodded over at Asriel.

His ears twitched and he moved as if to point at his own chest. “Oh! Uh, we were wondering if any of you knew anything about the Waterfall statue?” His grin was quite wide and forced. Asgore frowned at seeing it, or perhaps from the question, but Alphys and Undyne did not outwardly react beyond confusion.

“That statue’s always been there!” Undyne said, shrugging. “That’s why it was perfect for the puzzle I made!”

“And, uh, no one knows who exactly made it?” Alphys giggled, sounding embarrassed, and gave a shrug that looked almost painful from how tense it was. “I remember digging through some old reports, and, well, nothing useful came up?” She fixed her glasses again, the gesture almost as much a nervous tic as it was to see more clearly. “But I remember coming across some old articles and interviews and stuff about it while uploading files to the database. I–I’m sure some other volunteers came across things like that too.” She fixed the collar of her T-shirt, a bright pink baggy garment depicting a catlike humanoid with something written in Japanese with a cheerful, garishly colored print. “I’ll see if I can send over some of the most helpful.”

Frisk grinned. “Thanks, Alphys! You’re the best!”

Chara nodded. “Thank you for your assistance.” They hid their amusement as Alphys’s scales, from face to tail, started to tinge red as she grew flustered at the genuine expressions of gratitude.

“You got that right!” Undyne patted Alphys’s shoulder with all the heartiness that she could muster, which was more than anyone else that Chara knew. And then she leaned over and planted an enthusiastic kiss upon her cheek.

If Alphys had been blushing before, then she had taken it to the next level. Her scales grew from red-tinged to completely scarlet, and she was babbling with an expression between anxious and blissful. She was truly the textbook example of love-struck.

A giggle broke out, and suddenly Undyne was mock-glaring across the table. “What are you laughing at, punk?”

Frisk raised their hand over their mouth, eyes shining from how cute they had found the scene. “Nothing.”

Undyne grinned and pretended to roll up sleeves she did not have. “Well, I guess I can beat you up for nothing, then!”

“Please do not beat up my children,” Asgore muttered, right as Frisk burst up from their chair and sprinted away, followed by a blue blur giving off Undyne’s trademark “Fuhuhu!” laugh. “And please do not run in the house.”

His request went unheard by the two main culprits.

* * *

True to her word, Alphys had sent over several digital documents to their phones the moment she could. So rather than spend their Monday night playing a video game together, or just discussing the events of school, Chara and their siblings spent it cozied up in Chara’s room, reading through each article.

Chara let their eyes skim the text. It was, truthfully, quite dull. The authors used a multitude of long and eloquent words to impart the fact that they had nothing new to report regarding the subject matter. Everything they had to say, Chara and their siblings had already learned. The statue had been made and placed a great deal of time before the exodus to New Home; the few outlying monsters that had settled elsewhere claimed to have no idea of its creator’s identity or motives; it played music when the “rain” pouring on its head was partially diverted onto the structures surrounding its base.

They glanced at Asriel. He looked bored as well, but his brow was creased and his upper left fang worried at his lower lip. He was determined to get through this, despite the boredom.

And Frisk?

Frisk was continuously highlighting and defining words, still struggling through the first text they’d volunteered to read.

Chara felt a wave of pity for them. While Chara’s talents in reading, arithmetic, and other such subjects had made their life before falling underground miserable, it at least had come in handy for the times they had needed to research. Frisk did not have the same skillsets, however. While reading old textbooks borrowed from Alphys had been instrumental in Frisk getting the idea for how to restore their siblings’ souls and original forms, Chara had helped define the longer words and simplify what they read. Now, without that assistance, they struggled.

But if there was one thing Chara knew about their sibling, it was that they were stubborn, more stubborn than they could ever hope to be. Even if Chara had offered to help them, they would refuse it to prove that they could do it themself. They had sunk their teeth into this challenge, and now they would refuse to let go.

It was a trait that Chara both envied and feared.

Before Chara could continue reading their own article, a soft rapping on the door caught their attention. They looked to see Toriel looking into the room, an expression of tentative concern on her face.

“I apologize for interrupting,” she said in a voice both apologetic and firm, “but I just wished to let you know that bedtime is in half an hour.”

Asriel glanced at the clock that sat perfectly on the center of Chara’s bedside table. “Huh,” he said, and stretched. Chara almost winced as they heard the popping of vertebrae that accompanied the motion. “I guess we lost track of time there.”

“Indeed,” Toriel laughed and shook her head with a gentle fondness. “You have been at those articles for hours. Have you been taking breaks to move around?”

Chara was sure the silence emanating from all three of them answered her question better than any words.

Her kindly expression melted into one of motherly sternness. “Perhaps you ought to take a break for the night and do so?” She shook her head and stepped back into the hallway.

“We shall, Mother.” Chara made a point of putting their own cellphone into its sleep mode and standing up.

As Toriel moved away, Chara realized that while Asriel was standing and stretching with his phone now resting on Chara’s desk, Frisk had made no moves to get off the carpeted floor, their fingernail still tapping away at the screen.

“Frisk, Mother said it is time to put the research away and act as if we are not Sans.” Chara made sure their voice was stern.

Frisk said nothing.

Asriel stopped stretching and poked Frisk’s shoulder. “Frisk?”

The moment his claw prodded their skin, Frisk twitched in surprise, their phone landing some feet away. On their behalf, Chara felt grateful that the carpet was thick enough to protect it against damage.

“Azzy, what’d you do that for?” Frisk scowled at him, and Chara could see him take a step back, his concerned expression now one of guilt.

“Did you not hear Mother when she told us to stand up and move?” Frisk’s gaze moved away from Asriel, who gave them a weak, guilty smile of gratitude.

Frisk frowned and dug the heel of their palm below their eyesocket. “Mom was here?”

Asriel tilted his head, looking for all the world like a curious hound, if hounds had white fur and the barest hint of budding horns. “Uh, yeah? She just left, actually.”

Still, Frisk blinked between the two of them as if concerned that they were playing some kind of prank on them, making up mothers where there were none. Finally, they sighed and stood up, picking the phone up as they went. But as they paced around the room at a rate so slow Chara had seen faster snails, they made no effort to darken their phone screen. Instead, they read as they paced.

Well, Chara could not fault them for following Toriel’s instruction to the letter, if not the spirit.

Asriel left the room, saying something about going to water the plants in his room, leaving Chara with Frisk. And Chara found themself in the strange predicament of not knowing what to say to them.

While most memories from their and Frisk’s true resets were faded, between the two they had managed to put together enough to know that Chara was not the quietest of people. Even before the events that allowed them to regain full consciousness, Frisk had recalled having the occasional thought that had not belonged to them.

And when they did recover their full consciousness, they had not been a passive spectator, but rather a constant narrator to Frisk’s travels through the Underground. There had hardly been a moment that they did not have a comment to impart, or a pun to tell. It was not as if they could go elsewhere and do something else, after all.

But a realization that had struck them not long ago, combined with the stress of the situation, had left them nothing to say to their sibling. To the person to whom they owed their current existence, and the one who might very well be the one to take it away.

Chara’s attention was caught again as Frisk paused in the middle of their pacing, their finger hovering over their phone’s screen. They stared at whatever passage had caught their attention, holding the phone as if it held the answers to all of their problems.

“I assume you found something?” Chara asked. They would be lying if they, too, had had their interest peaked at the thought of the possibility of something new coming to light. It would certainly alleviate the boredom of reading dry texts that repeated the same information to them ad nauseum.

Frisk did not reply, instead staring at the phrase at the screen, the corners of their mouth lifting farther up into a disbelieving smile. Chara could almost swear that they were starting to vibrate in place like a Temmie upon seeing Temmie flakes.

Yes, it was time to get their brother.

They left Frisk in their room and went to Asriel’s, just next door. They rapped on the doorframe before clasping their hands behind their back and waiting for the response.

Chara heard the sound of a book closing, a soft but solid thunk. “Uh, yeah? You can come in.”

Invitation received, Chara entered Asriel’s room. A leaf from his Chinese evergreen tickled their skin as they passed the doorway; they noted that Asriel would need to trim it soon.

“Hey, Chara. What’s up?” Asriel slid a small journal into a drawer of his desk before turning it around.

Chara inclined their head. “I am sorry for interrupting you, Asriel, but I think Frisk has found something interesting.”

Asriel’s eyes almost turned a brighter shade of red as he perked up in his seat. “Gosh, really?”

As if on cue, Frisk’s voice bled through the walls. “Chara, Azzy? Where are you?”

Chara shook their head. “We are in Asriel’s room.”

Their reply received a flurry of excited footsteps in reply, followed by Frisk barging into Asriel’s room. As they dashed inside, a leaf that protruded from the evergreen plant snagged on their body and tore off the stem. It fluttered the ground, twisting and turning as if protesting its fate.

Frisk did not seem to notice. They were waving their phone in Chara’s face as they all but danced on the spot, chanting, “Look! Look! Look!”

Chara turned their gaze from the white blur that was the phone screen to their sibling’s face. “I would, if you held the phone still.”

Frisk decided to forgo that, and thrust the phone into Chara’s hands instead. Their finger obscured part of their vision as Frisk pointed at a few paragraphs at the top of the screen.

“These, here.” They tapped rapidly on the text, highlighting the word “the” and bringing up the options menu.

Chara tapped the blank space to the side of the text to dismiss said menu. “Thank you,” they said, biting back the sarcastic retort that was their first impulse.

As Chara began to read the text, they heard Asriel’s chair wobble as he left it to read over their shoulder. Asriel would not have missed out on much from skipping this file, however; asfar as Chara could tell, it was the tail end of an interview with a resident of Waterfall.

They felt their spirits dampen. At first glance, it did not seem to confirm anything they did not know about the statue.

“Uh, it’s great you finished the text, Frisk, but what did you find?” Asriel sounded slightly crestfallen.

“Did you get to the conclusion yet?” Frisk’s eyebrows rose higher than they had already been raised.

Chara scrolled down slightly on the text until a good part of the next paragraph had been revealed.

As they skimmed the text, Asriel read the words aloud. _“‘The researchers could gather no more information from the interviewee, as they had disappeared with the utmost speed while they were distracted.’”_ His furrowed brow lifted and he met Frisk’s gaze with wide eyes. “Disappeared?”

Frisk nodded. “Like that kid in Waterfall!”

Chara suddenly felt the lateness of the evening weighing down on them. However, they would not leave their brother to let them down on his own.

“Frisk, we do not know for sure that the ‘disappearing’ the interviewee did was the same as the disappearing the child did.” Chara rubbed the heel of their palm into their cheekbone, trying to wipe away the sudden onset of exhaustion. “We do not know that Sans is the only monster with ‘shortcuts,’ after all.”

Frisk frowned, and then turned to Asriel. “Is he?”

Asriel shrugged. “I’ve never seen anyone else with that ability. What monster did they interview?”

Frisk’s eyes darted to the side as they seemingly thought back. “Uh, some sort of clam monster.”

Asriel hummed as he cast his thoughts back into what he knew of the Underground’s residents. “There’s no clam monster who lives in Waterfall. Hotland and New Home, yes, but never in Waterfall.”

Frisk shrugged. “Maybe one used to live there before?”

Asriel shrugged. “No, not one.”

And if Asriel was confident that there were no clam monsters who lived in Waterfall, past or present, then Chara believed him.

Frisk seemed convinced, as they wrinkled their nose in confusion. “Maybe they’re like that strange disappearing kid. Someone can’t be in trouble without people remembering!”

Chara shook their head. “We do not even know if this clam monster in the interview is in distress. Does the interview say they were?”

Frisk hesitated. “Not that I remember.”

“And, uh, even if this clam monster was like the kid you met,” Asriel continued, fidgeting and not meeting their eyes, “what exactly would this do to help them?”

Frisk huffed, raking their fingers down their hair. “I don’t know, but apparently no one’s even been able to find out who they are. If there are other monsters who can disappear…” They shook their head. “I don’t know. But we can’t just sit here and hope that someone else will help them.”

Well, Chara should have seen this coming. Frisk had felt responsibility for helping everyone, especially monsters, from the moment they realized there were two potential siblings they felt needed saving.

And while last time Frisk had proven capable of helping restore their lost bodies and souls, that was no guarantee that they would be able to do anything about the missing kid, or any other missing monsters out in the Underground.

But if Chara told Frisk this outright, they would not listen. Therefore, they had to lead them to their own conclusion.

“So then, if you are so determined that you alone can save them, then what is your plan?” There were no books with helpful information for them to turn to this time. Nothing on magic or soul theory could help them here, especially not without Chara or Asriel absorbing seven human souls to gain the necessary power to put it into practice.

The question brought Frisk to a halt. They averted their gaze, staring out the window over Asriel’s bed, a soft glow from a magical crystal streetlamp faintly visible through the curtains. “I don’t know yet.” Despite the softness of the voice, they sounded no less swayed out of their conviction. “But I have to try.” They bit their bottom lip. “Perhaps we could go down to Waterfall again and see if we can find the kid again, or another of these disappearing monsters?”

Chara let an eyebrow raise. “Even if there are more of these monsters as you theorize, how would you find them? You found the child by chance, not design, both times.”

Frisk shrugged. They still were looking at anything but them or Asriel. “I don’t know.”

“And if you could convince Mother could take you back down there, it would not be for months. Between our classes at school, her career, upcoming events you shall be required at… Obligations that require your undivided attention. Let those whose job it is to track down monsters in distress handle this. The child is certainly not going to be aided sooner by your neglect of the rest of the kingdom.”

Frisk hunched their shoulders and stared at their feet, and for a moment Chara braced themself for a bitter rebuttal.

Then Toriel came back into the room. “Is everything all right?” she asked, whatever she’d had to say before taking back burner.

Frisk turned around, the frustration wiping from their features like water off of a pane of glass. “Yeah, Mom, everything’s fine!”

It was almost as if seeing themself or Asriel put on a cheerful façade. Chara would have been impressed, had they not experience with hiding their own emotions for the sake of their family, and knowledge that Asriel did the same.

Toriel did not seem convinced, but she did not seem inclined to press the matter. “It is about the time that you should all prepare for bedtime,” she said, her gaze still panning across all her children as if searching for clues for what had happened before her entrance.

Finally, she convinced herself that all was well and left the doorway.

“Are you really all right?” The way that Asriel squinted at them as he asked his question made Chara think that he didn’t think so.

Frisk turned and smiled at him. “I guess so.” They gave Asriel and Chara a short wave. “We’ll talk about this later.”

Yes, Chara expected so. And maybe next time, they would press their own questions about how far Frisk was willing to go to give everyone a happy ending they deemed fit.

“Good night, then.” Asriel returned the wave as Frisk took back their phone from Chara. With his face creased with concern, he looked like he was uncertain whether or not to leave the conversation for another day or to continue hounding them until they realized that they were not responsible for solving everyone’s woes.

Frisk turned, and for the first time noticed the leaf on the ground.

“Oh, what happened to your plant?” They picked up the leaf, turning it over in their fingers. “Is it sick?”

“No, not really.” Asriel shrugged.

Chara tilted their head as they regarded Frisk’s reactions, wishing that, like their brother, they had many resets’ worth of learning to read familiar people as if all their thoughts were laid out on a blackboard in front of them. “It merely had a mishap with a body moving at great speed.”

Frisk shoulder’s hunch as they realized the events at which they were hinting. “Oh, I’m sorry, Azzy. I shouldn’t have run in here like that.”

Asriel shrugged. “You don’t have to apologize, Frisk. I really should’ve trimmed it back a few days ago. Guess I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow.”

Frisk still looked guilty as they let it fall into the waste bin beside Asriel’s desk. After one last good night to both their siblings, Frisk left the room, glancing at their phone screen.

“What about you, Chara?” Asriel asked once the door to Frisk’s room clicked shut. “Are you okay?”

Chara nodded. “I expect I shall be.”

Asriel frowned and clasped his hands together, looking like the world’s most worried therapist. “That isn’t all right now.”

They never could hide their concerns from their brother.

Asriel lifted a hand to scratch at his ear before returning to holding his own hand. “Listen, uh, I know you’re kind of upset at Frisk for something. Well, something different than this whole Waterfall thing.” He laughed, sounding more anxious than amused. Chara was sure he caught the wince they hid, because he stopped the moment they stifled the impulse. “But, well, you could always tell me. Or tell Frisk. Just don’t bottle stuff up like you always do and beat yourself up about it.”

Quite the words for him to say. He always buried the feelings that he deemed not “soft” enough, emotions like anger, and jealousy, and bitterness. Emotions that reminded him of himself in the past, when he had lost his soul.

Emotions he had to fear now, thanks to Chara.

They had let Asriel deal enough with their own issues.

And perhaps they would not confront Frisk with their own issues, their own insecurities and doubts. It would be hypocritical for them to confront their sibling about flaws that ended up making multitudes of monsters happy, when their own failings had brought them to misery.

Instead, they shrugged. “I shall think about it.”

Asriel frowned, and Chara knew he knew that their mind had already been set on its course. But he allowed them to leave with a sorrowful good night.

As Chara went to change into their sleepwear, they could not help but wonder what they could do to stop their family worrying over them for no reason.

* * *

 

“Chara, wake up, please.”

The soft, but urgent voice, and the gentle shaking of their shoulder woke Chara from their slumber. They peeled open their eyelids, which felt swollen from drowsiness, and saw a pale blur in the darkness.

“Mother?” They sat up, gently lifting back a corner of their blankets in preparation to get out of their bed. “What is wrong?” There had to be something important for Toriel to wake them during what could only be the middle of the night, or the early hours before dawn.

Indeed, in the dark room where the only light filtered in from the hallway, she looked on the verge of panic. “Chara, have you seen Frisk?”

Chara felt themself tense. “Not since bedtime last night.” They caught movement from the corner of their eye, and glanced out to the hallway to see Asriel, framed by the open door. He was holding his wrist as if that was the only thing keeping him tethered to calmness, and staring at Chara as if they were his only hope of being saved.

Toriel’s face grew more drawn and tense. Chara did not need her to say anything to know what was the matter.

Frisk had gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wish I could've written this chapter better and faster, but between all the chaos that's happened in the last couple months, interests shifting slightly, and an idea for a new fanfiction in a different fandom that just won't leave me alone, this kind of got neglected. But still, we're getting to a part I'm excited to share, and hopefully that will turn out better!
> 
> Thank you all for reading and being patient!


	7. Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chara and Asriel disagree on the right action to take now that Frisk is missing.

“Asgore? This is Toriel.” A pause. Then a deep rumble from the phone, too muted by distance and the fur on the side of Toriel’s head for Asriel to understand. “Yes, I know. But that is not important at the moment. Is Frisk with you?” A shorter mumble. “No, Dreemurr, everything is not ‘all right.” She sighed, her muscles going from tensed in preparation for a fight to–well, she still looked tense, but she’d stopped her shoulders from rising and her fingers from curling so that her claws dug into her phone and palm, so she was trying to look calm, but in a forced way. “Frisk has disappeared.”

As Toriel continued the call, she shifted her weight from foot to foot, over and over, just barely enough to be noticed. She only did that when she was really stressed. Asriel had seen her face certain death standing as still as a statue, had seen her brace herself to fight Frisk and Chara with all the resolution of a mountain standing against the wind. When she was showing cracks in her ex-queen mode, the situation was really bad.

And for good reason. Asriel himself felt like a little kid again, shaking and scared. At least on the inside. He glanced at his hands to make sure they were still. Toriel was already upset, and giving into the panic and worry would only make the situation worse.

He glanced over at Chara. They, too, were collected and still, though they had ditched their usual smile for a neutral expression that was just a bit too tight around the eyes and corners of the mouth. They were angry.

At Frisk, or at themself?

Asriel could relate to the feeling. Feeding into his shakiness and concern was guilt, guilt that he hadn’t been able to say something that would make Frisk reconsider whatever had made them want to run off and save monsters they felt that they and only they could save. Guilt that, despite all his resets’ worth of experience, compared to all the other monsters and even to Chara he knew less about the sibling who’d helped save him than they did about him.

Guilt that he still hadn’t told Toriel about why Frisk had left.

_It isn’t like Chara’s said anything, either,_ he thought. His soul sparked with an electric jolt of anger, but he clamped down on it before it could take root. The situation was bad enough without his anger and hypocrisy feeding into it.

And he could kind of understand why both of them were keeping silent, too.

Chara finally drew themself out of whatever had them preoccupied and met his eyes. They took a deep breath in and out, probably to calm themself, and raised their hands to sign. “Let us discuss this elsewhere.”

Asriel glanced over at Toriel. He’d been keeping in her sight, so she wouldn’t worry as much, but she was absorbed in the phone call, controlling her irritation as much as she was her worry.

For a moment, he wondered if perhaps he should shake his head and stay near her, even if all he could offer was a little peace of mind that at least he and Chara hadn’t taken off.

But no. He hadn’t thought that Frisk would run away. Sure, maybe it was because they hadn’t come up with the plan until after he’d last seen them, but he really should’ve suspected this would’ve crossed their mind sooner.

He had to help make this right.

He and Chara managed to move into the hall connecting their and Frisk’s rooms without Toriel pausing in her phone call. Chara stopped there instead of bringing the conversation to one of their rooms, which spoke volumes as to how long they felt like she’d be distracted, and how urgently they wanted to discuss whatever it was they wanted to talk about.

“Let us not beat around the bush.” Chara’s hands were faster and more clipped than usual as they signed the words. “You and I both know where Frisk has gone.”

Asriel nodded. He couldn’t imagine them being anywhere else at the moment.

Chara continued after seeing the gesture. “And we both know that they have done so because they believe that they alone can help that child, and that the monster in that article they showed us needs help of a similar caliber.” The side of their nose twitched in a silent scoff. “Never mind that said monster easily could have wandered off when those who interviewed them turned their backs. Instead, they fixated on the word choice as justification for running away from home.” They let their hands drop back to their sides, fingers flexing. If they were showing their frustration like that, Asriel didn’t want to know what they’d have to say to Frisk next time they saw them.

“You think that they would’ve run off even if they hadn’t found that article?” Asriel made sure that his hands were steady; Chara was already upset enough at Frisk for having upset Toriel as much as they had. If they knew just how worried Asriel was, then that would just feed into that anger. Which would make Frisk angrier when they next spoke, which would just continue the cycle of rage.

Chara nodded, a sharp dip of their head. “Although they might not have done so tonight, then later, if they had become more impatient with the child’s rescue mission’s lack of results.”

That did make sense.

In the lull of their conversation, Asriel picked up Toriel speaking loudly into the phone. “No, I do not believe that they had been taken. I have ensured that this house is as safe as I can make it so that no human or monster would be able to kidnap them.” The edges of her words were clipped with frustration from both the situation and talking to her ex-husband. She was usually so careful to make sure that she and Asgore never had an argument where she thought any of their kids could hear. If she was showing her frustration now, when he and Chara were in the house and already stressed, she must really be sick with worry.

But if she knew where Frisk had went, knew of a place to start looking, would she feel at least some relief?

“I think we should tell Mom.” He took a deep breath and let Chara process the signs. “She really deserves to know what’s going on, at least.”

Chara raised an eyebrow. That was never a good sign. “And we both know she will insist on going to find them herself, and that Frisk will immediately reload their save the moment she appears. That is why we have both kept our silence, is it not?” They tilted their head almost sarcastically.

Asriel fought his grimace even as he nodded. On the one hand, it felt kind of mean not to give Frisk the benefit of the doubt, at least. On the other, he knew they’d loaded saves when their family looked less than perfectly happy. They’d even made true resets in the hopes that perhaps the next time something might go differently to help save Asriel and Chara, even on the occasions they’d realized that true resets erased their memories, too.

It wasn’t that hard to realize that Frisk would reload until they felt like they knew how to save the monsters they’d decided needed their help.

Even if it took forever.

Asriel frowned, thinking back to everything he’d noticed that night. “I haven’t felt any déjà vu. Have you?” He swallowed as he signed the question, unsure of whether or not he wanted to hear a “no.”

“I have not.” Chara’s signs were choppier than before.

Asriel felt torn. Half of his body wanted to relax, the other half wanted to remain tense. It felt like his soul was going every which way. “Well, I haven’t seen anyone have any déjà vu tonight. I guess Frisk hasn’t done any loads yet.”

“‘Yet,’” Chara repeated, signing the word slower than they had been to make the quote obvious. “There is no evidence to show that they will not load a save once they have to face consequences for the evidence, and all the evidence to show that they will.”

Asriel really wanted to be calm, he really did, but the anger sparking in his soul was getting too much to keep up the outer façade. He allowed himself to frown instead of glare, though he made sure that his lip stayed over his teeth. “So you’re saying that we should just let Mom worry? That we shouldn’t do anything because it’ll all just be erased anyways?” Even if Frisk would just load over them telling Toriel what was going on, it was still wrong not to tell her anything and let her keep worrying. If Asriel had learned anything from his time as Flowey, it was what you did when you thought none of your actions mattered anyways that really mattered.

He’d already failed that test multiple times. He owed it to everyone, to his family and friends, to get it right this time.

Chara closed their eyes and took a deep breath. “I am not suggesting we do nothing.” Their signs were slow, yet jagged like the cut of a dull knife. “I believe that we should go talk to them ourselves.”

Asriel had had a lot of time to learn how to hide his emotions. He’d spent what must’ve been years as a flower wearing a mask, to hide the emptiness, the morbid curiosity, the anger inside him from everyone else so long as it benefitted him in the end.

Maybe it was harder after he regained a soul, because now he barely stifled the impulse to yell at them. “Why?” In spite of everything, it felt good to give into the impulse to make his signs as sharp as he wanted. He still forced himself to take a deep breath, stamp down the anger, and sign slower, more calmly. “You know that’d upset Frisk. We just told them that we should let professionals find the kid. Wouldn’t acting like that just upset them and make the situation worse? Hurt everyone else? Not to mention that our parents are already worried enough. They do not need us disappearing on them too.”

For a moment, Chara’s solemn mask seemed to crack. Their jaw tensed, their breath stuttered in their throat, their shoulders raised. Their expression flickered between guilt, pain, and anger before they took a deep breath and settled back to neutral.

“I am not suggesting this to hurt anyone.” Their signs were slow, deliberate, versus the punchy, sudden ones they’d been making before. “I do not make this suggestion lightly, and would not have made it if I did not believe it was the only way to mend this situation.”

“There’s always another way.” The two of them just weren’t thinking hard enough. They were angry, and worried, and tired. There had to be some way to fix this that just hadn’t occurred to them.

“Perhaps, but time is of the essence.” As if to make their point, Chara began to sign faster again. “At any moment Frisk could decide to reset. Because they have been caught. Because they have found whatever they have needed and wish to escape the majority of the consequences. Who can say. But at this point it is an inevitability. At any moment we could all return to the start, with no memories of what had come before.”

“And what good will running away ourselves do?” All it would do was cause more panic, more pain.

“We have both come to the conclusion that, should Frisk face being brought back, they will load instead of give up. And should the situation regarding the monster child be out of their scope to fix, they shall not accept that and trap all of us in an eternal time loop.” They paused to take a breath before starting to sign again, their signs deliberately too slow to be genuinely calm. “But we also know that we are the only ones with which they discuss their resets, their loads and saves, their actions in them.”

Asriel had to admit that this was true. Yes, they’d explained the resets, loads, and saves with Toriel and Asgore after everyone woke up to see two children who should’ve been dead lying there, alive as could be. But beyond allusions to all of them having made poor choices with the power that none of them properly explained and that neither parent dug too deep into, they never really discussed their darker actions.

However, Frisk had been more open with him and Chara. It wasn’t something they discussed often; it wasn’t exactly a cheery conversation topic. But he was pretty sure that Frisk never brought it up again with their parents, and that they hadn’t told anyone else.

“If we were to find Frisk, perhaps they would not load, not immediately at the very least, and we could make our case for them to come home.” They shrugged. “A long shot. However, if we cannot convince them to give up this wild goose chase, no one can.”

Asriel knew that this was true. Frisk was always stubborn, far more than he’d been even as a flower. But that didn’t mean it was the right thing to do.

“Even if we do have a chance, we’d still be hurting other people.” Asriel pointed at the doorway into the living room. Toriel’s voice still came through it, though not as clear from the distance. Apparently she had finished talking with Asgore and was now on the phone with someone else. “And even if Frisk does reload, we’ll still have hurt them, even if we can’t remember it. Isn’t that why we agreed that resets were wrong?”

Chara nodded. “Unfortunately, Frisk has not quite come to that conclusion for themself. Yes, they believe wholeheartedly that killing all the monsters was a poor choice, and that they should never have done it. However,” they added before Asriel could raise his own hands to make another point, “they do not believe that the ability to save and reset itself is a problem. In their experience, they were able to use it, again and again, until they were able to restore our souls and original forms as best as they were able. They are so elated with the results that they do not fully comprehend the amount of time that they trapped monsters, and the entire world, in a time loop for a version of a happy ending that they believed existed despite having no guarantee of finding.”

Asriel shook his head. “I know that.” While Frisk was impulsive and stubborn, they were overall trying to be a good person. If they believed that saves and loads were bad, they wouldn’t have done it. But they had come to the conclusion that having them meant that they had the responsibility of using them to fix every problem, no matter how small.

Chara nodded. “Then you know that we have no choice but to go and stop them if we wish for the entire world not to be trapped in the same night for eternity. After all, once everyone else stops to think instead of panic, they will check the underground, which will cause Frisk to load their save. They have all but forced our hands in the matter.”

Asriel shook his head. “We always have a choice.” He stepped forward. “We can choose to hurt our parents while looking for Frisk and hope they don’t reload, or we can stop and think of a better way that doesn’t hurt anyone.”

“Is there even a way to achieve that in this situation?” Chara tilted their head, leaning just the slightest bit forward. “Currently, our choices are to either leave Toriel and Asgore in an attempt to convince Frisk that what they are doing is wrong, to stay with them and let Frisk trap everyone in the same night, possibly for eternity, and the elusive third choice that you are hoping that we can think of before the latter happens.”

Asriel forced himself not to scowl. Why wasn’t Chara listening? “I know, but we can’t just let Mom and Dad panic because they lost all their children in one night again!”

The moment that his hands finished the last sign, he realized that he’d let anger rule his actions again. But it was too late. Chara had already read each and every word. They blinked twice in shock, which, for them, was as good as a flinch.

The anger left Asriel’s soul, replaced by that all-too-familiar guilt. “Chara, I’m sorry–”

Chara started signing again before he could finish. “No, do not apologize.” They let out a deep breath before continuing. “Perhaps you are right.”

Asriel almost thought he was reading the signs wrong, though he’d known them long enough to not make such a mistake.

However, they were signing slowly and clearly enough that there was no possible way he could be mistranslating it. “Our parents would definitely worry if all their children disappeared in one night.”

Asriel almost missed the last part of their sentence, as the sign for “all” had caught his attention. And the way they’d changed their argument so quickly, that could only mean–

“Asriel? Chara?” A few footsteps signaled her turning the corner and into the hallway. “I have something to tell you.”

Asriel frowned as he tried to figure out what it was. Toriel held herself like her limbs had turned to stone, so it didn’t have anything to do with Frisk. And she was frowning as if she was bracing herself for something upsetting. But nothing regarding Frisk, otherwise she’d be even worse off.

“Yeah, Mom?” Asriel turned to face her properly.

Toriel glanced from him to Chara, her expression shifting slightly toward confusion before turning back to concern again. “I have just finished alerting everyone to Frisk’s disappearance.”

Asriel nodded and fixed an expression of hope on his face, though wasn’t sure how to feel about this. It would definitely make Toriel feel better, and he definitely didn’t want to just do nothing while Frisk was missing, even if it’d all be for nothing. But more awareness meant that there were more eyes out for Frisk, more chances for them to be caught and decide to reload to take a different path.

Perhaps Chara was right, and going to speak to Frisk themselves was the only way to stop them for good.

But how could he do that in good conscience when it would hurt their parents, their friends?

Perhaps if he and Chara told Toriel what was happening and found a way to convince her to let them speak to Frisk alone? But no, she’d never agree to that. She’d want to stay close to protect them, and while Frisk might’ve been okay speaking to him and Chara alone they would immediately reload if Toriel was there, too.

“I plan on joining the search myself, and your father has as well.” Toriel bit her lip. “Alphys is staying at her and Undyne’s house, as she is using remotely controlled flying robots to search for them from the air. As everyone else we know is out searching, she is the only one that will be able to keep an eye on the two of you.”

Asriel nodded. That made sense.

“Do not worry, children. Undyne has the entire New Royal Guard out on the streets, Asgore says that he will contact Mettaton to work on a way to alert all monsters in the city without alarming humans who would use this against us, and everyone else is searching every corner of Home the Third. They certainly cannot have gotten far without someone spotting them, and especially now that everyone is on the alert.” Yet despite the words, Toriel was still worrying at her lip, her breaths deep and slow in a deliberate attempt to calm herself, or at the very least look like she wasn’t panicked. “I promise that, even if somehow they elude everything we have set in motion, I shall pick you up by noon today, my children.”

Asriel nodded. “Okay, Mom.” He went up to hug her, and was glad to feel her calm down a little at the very least as she returned the gesture.

“We shall be good.” Chara’s voice made Asriel want to glare, as they both knew that was a lie.

“Yes, I know you will.” Toriel’s words were so relieved, at least in comparison to before, and Asriel almost told her the truth, despite the consequences. “Now, you two get dressed and bring whatever you will need at Alphys’s and Undyne’s.”

Asriel felt his soul shudder. If Chara wanted a chance to sneak off without anyone noticing immediately, that would be their chance. They wouldn’t have as much of a head start as Frisk, but they were desperate. Desperate enough to chance it. But if their mother knew, would she find a way to stop them?

But Toriel was already moving toward the door to grab her coat. And as he went to his room, and let Chara go to theirs, he wondered.

Should he tell Toriel? Yes, it might mean that she’d go after Frisk and possibly cause them to feel like a load was necessary, but at the very least she wouldn’t be as terrified, knowing where they were. At the very least, shouldn’t he tell her about Chara? Because they were just going to make a bad situation worse with their plan.

Or was Chara right that the only way to get Frisk to come home without them loading their save was to talk to them themselves? It didn’t seem like the right decision, but was there even a right decision in this situation?

And if so, should he stay with Toriel and let them handle this on their own, so that she didn’t have to worry about one kid, at least? Or should he go with them and try to make sure their anger, and fear, and frustration didn’t tear a rift between them?

Movement out the window caught his eye, and he saw Chara as they strode through the yard toward the gate as if marching toward battle. 

Whatever he was planning to do, he’d better do it soon, before everything fell apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally finished this chapter!
> 
> I was stuck on this for the longest time. At first it was going to take place later in the timeline of events, but an important scene that was in it wasn't working, and I had no clue why. But then I realized that Asriel was the wrong character to show the scene through, and that his presence weakened the entire thing. So I had to rewrite the entire chapter to take place earlier and explain why Asriel wasn't there. Combined with the new HTTYD fanfiction I've been working on, general difficulty with writing, being busy in real life, and some health issues popping up, this really took a lot of time to make meet my expectations, at least somewhat. 
> 
> But it's up now, and I hope it's okay!


	8. The Lies We Tell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chara and Frisk have a discussion that Chara feels must be had.

Chara would never say that they remembered the first time they had climbed Mount Ebott with any fondness.

Despite the fact that humans had forgotten about monsters’ existence for thousands of years, it already had a legend of being deadly to those who ventured upon its slopes. After all, one did not need to fall into the underground itself to disappear. One could easily surmise that its shaded forests shrouded many dangers, such as wild animals and treacherous footing, and warn others, particularly children, to give the landmark a wide berth.

Therefore, it had been the perfect place for a child wanting to be alone. Not alone because they had preferred it, but because it had been better than the alternative.

Chara remembered having thought to themself that even if they happened to disappear while climbing the mountain they would not complain, the prospect of their biological parents’ punishment for venturing out alone with no supervision for hours unappealing.

If they were one to believe in wishes coming true, they might say they received exactly what they had wanted and needed.

It would be upsetting, though, if they did, knowing exactly how they had ended up squandering their second chance at a happy ending. They had been fortunate enough that they had received a third.

Hopefully they would not need a fourth.

But as dark as the memories were, it meant that they were not scared as they scaled the mountain’s slopes, strides as long and fast as they could manage without wearing themself out before reaching their destination. The omnipresent dark did not scare them; they knew the most horrifying terrors did not lurk in the shadows outside of one’s soul.

By the time they found the entrance to the underground that led into New Home directly, though, the darkness was starting to draw back. The horizon was aglow with a gray, almost white, line, slightly orange close to the horizon. The sun would not be far behind. Undyne, by now, was certainly on the hunt for Frisk.

For them, now, too.

Chara had to be swift. They could not count on no one finding out where they had headed, nor could they count on Asriel not to help the others to that discovery.

So they strode into the mountain and turned their back on the lightening sky.

At first, the echoes of their footsteps bouncing off the stone walls was their only companion. But as they neared their old home, they heard a second set, lighter and not as rapid.

They concentrated on walking silently while keeping as much momentum as they could.

When they turned the corner into the throne room, they did not have to search long to see the source of the noise. There, framed in the middle of a dull yellow room not yet bathed in golden light, Frisk crept through the flowers in a vain attempt to avoid crushing any beneath their feet.

Chara cleared their throat. Frisk nearly leapt into the air and spun around, eyes wide and hand resting over their heart.

“Greetings,” Chara said, and noted that their voice echoed through the room in a rather eerie manner.

“Chara!” Frisk did not sound sure whether they wanted to sound shocked or scolding. “You–what are you doing here?” They kept shifting their weight from foot to foot, expression shifting just as often between confusion, nervousness, and relief.

Chara folded their hands behind their back. “I could ask the same of you, sibling. This is an odd place to be at this hour, especially without letting your family know that you had plans to be here so early.”

Frisk winced. “I’m sorry.”

Chara felt an eyebrow raise, almost of its own accord. They did not try and fix their expression into something more neutral, though, as it seemed to wrong-foot Frisk further. “Are you, now? How interesting.”

Frisk blinked, looking for all the world like that had been on the bottom of the list of what they had expected Chara to say. “I am!” 

Chara folded their hands behind their back and channeled as much sternness as they could into their gaze. “What does Mother always tell us about apologies?” They paused just long enough for it to sink into Frisk’s mind without making it appear anything but rhetorical. “She tells us that an apology always involves changing your behavior in the future to avoid harming the other party in the same way again. And we both know that you would not and will not do anything different in the future.”

Frisk frowned. “Wait a minute. I never ran away before this.”

“Perhaps not.” Chara took a step forward, the flowerbed rustling as they stepped onto it. “But that is not what I was discussing.”

Frisk’s nose wrinkled. “What do you mean?” They leaned backward, seeming to force themself to not back away from Chara while still keeping as much distance from them as possible.

Chara folded their hands behind them and arranged their expression to have a smile that was just a bit too wide, despite having no positive feelings toward this encounter. “I am talking about what will happen after you have had your fun running about the underground and scaring your family to death.”

The words seemed to give Frisk quite the dose of guilt, as they stepped back just the slightest amount. “I was just going to load back to before I left,” they admitted, voice too quiet to have any sort of echo. “No one would’ve had to worry.”

As Chara had expected. Hopefully the glare that they give their sibling conveyed their feelings about that. “Yet even after, it still would have happened. After all, your memories and our déjà vu had to have come from somewhere, even if you did load over the events. Am I correct?”

Frisk took a step forward, nervousness replaced by annoyance. “I never just load saves because I feel like it. I only do that when it can make things better for everyone.”

Chara laughed, just once. It echoed through the room, and they noticed that while they were trying to stand their ground, their shoulders were tensed and they kept shifting their stance as if preparing themself to flee at any second.

Good. It was only fitting that they feel the same concern for themself that they caused their parents and siblings to have with their reckless and thoughtless behavior.

“Since the barrier’s fall, you have loaded saves when either one of our parents looked less than perfectly happy, when you accidentally misunderstood what Monster Kid had wanted for a birthday gift even when they had genuinely enjoyed the one you had given them instead, when you accidentally stepped on another ambassador’s foot and felt you had given them the wrong first impression.” They took a moment to take a deep breath and collect themself. “You load for every minor inconvenience that you deem makes your vision of a happy ending less than perfect, without regard that some of these events truly do not matter in the long run. Forgive me, but it feels more like you are doing these deeds to make yourself feel better rather than out of the goodness of your heart.”

Frisk shook their head, forehead creasing as they leaned forward. “No, I do it because they do matter! If I have the power to make it so that no one has to be unhappy for more than they need to, don’t I have to do it?”

Chara wished that they felt angrier when they heard this. Oh, how they wished they felt anger. Instead, it felt like their soul was empty, all emotions replaced with resignation that rang dull in their chest.

It seemed like you only felt anger when you truly had hope that you could change a person’s mind.

“And anyways,” they continued, taking a step forward and letting their fingers curl at their sides, “this is really important! There’s at least one monster that needs help! And I just–I just can’t sit there and wait for someone else to help them when I’m not doing anything!”

“I suppose you feel it is worth all the worry you caused Asriel and I, our parents, our friends.” Chara shrugged, keeping the gesture loose. Appearing calm during the discussion seemed to unnerve Frisk more than any harsh words. Perhaps such an emotion would force them to stop and consider, as reason had proven unhelpful.

Frisk winced as they shuffled and forced themself to keep Chara’s gaze. “Once I figured out how to save that kid and any other monsters who needed help, I was going to load back to before I left, and then–”

“Then what? Would you explain to Mother that you used your powers to run away without consequence? Or would you run away a second time to try and save them your way?”

Frisk suddenly decided to drop their eye contact, opting instead to gaze at the highly fascinating tops of their sneakers. “I didn’t think that far ahead.” As fast as they had lowered their gaze, they met Chara’s eyes again with a face set with determination. “But I couldn’t just do nothing and pretend everything was okay! Not like you!”

The accusation did not cause Chara’s soul to shrink back, as Frisk has intended. Instead, it felt firm and unyielding, fixing their feet more firmly on their path. “Tell me, do you do something about every issue on the news that you see?”

Frisk blinked, head tilting to the side. Their gaze narrowed as they appeared to analyze the response as if the words had been written in the air between them, and they were not sure what they meant.

Chara did not need Asriel’s extensive experience in reading body language to know that they had taken Frisk off-guard with their question. They pressed their advantage. “Yet even when you did not intervene, many of those issues were still resolved, sometimes not to the perfect conclusion, were they not?”

Frisk nodded, the gesture defiant. “Yeah, but this is different!”

Chara held back a sigh. Irritating that Frisk could not admit that they were in the wrong. “How so?”

“No one’s been able to find this kid for ages now.”

Chara could not help but add, “You mean less than a week.”

Frisk seemed to puff up as their shoulders raised like it would make them seem taller and more intimidating as they shot Chara a glare so sharp that for a moment they looked almost unrecognizable from their usual self. Chara could not help but feel satisfied that this rankled them. “It’s still several days they’ve been alone and afraid! And so far, I’ve been the only one who’s found them, the only one they’ve talked to. I forgot them once, and I refuse to do it again!”

“Both times you and this child have met by pure chance. Do you not think it is unlikely that you will find them again when you have no clue of where to search? Never mind these other monsters you remain convinced exist and need your help and your help alone.”

Frisk shook their head, hair flying all over before settling in their face. “I’ll find them, no matter what!”

Chara could believe that Frisk would try anything from the look on their face. Any nervousness or doubt had vanished, leaving only pure determination.

Perhaps that was why Chara felt their soul grow tired and worn.

“I was thinking of true resets the other day.” The words seemed to flow from Chara’s mouth on their own; they had had enough of stifling their concerns back for a sibling who seemed they only cared for them because of how they added to their vision of a perfect ending.

Frisk’s set jaw and jutted lip turned to a puzzled frown, their lowered eyebrows drawing together. “I don’t–”

“I was thinking about true resets,” Chara continued, “and how little you remember from them. How you cannot tell with certainty which one of them was your first, if you even recall your first at all.”

Frisk shook their head. “I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”  

Chara paused to collect their thoughts, clasping their hands behind their back. Their gaze shifted away from Frisk and toward the ceiling. The cracks in the rock which were shaped like a flower were now crawling with overgrown roots and revealed a pale gray sky, not magical energy as there had been in the days when the barrier still stood. “Those few incidents you remember tend to have repeated themselves in all timelines, correct?”

Frisk paused, then nodded.

Chara closed their eyes, the better to choose their words. “Fighting or fleeing from Undyne, Mother attempting to keep you in Home, the first Froggit that crossed your path… While the outcomes differ, the basics remain the same, do they not?” They swallowed. “And while those incidents tend to come more easily when called, the moments in between are easily lost to the resets. As are your memories of what happens after leaving the Underground after the barrier breaks.”

Frisk finally spoke up. “I don’t understand where you’re going with this.” Their voice wobbled a bit. Did they fear where Chara was going to take this, or upset that they were facing the consequences for their actions?

Chara took a deep breath and met Frisk’s gaze again. The confidence, the determination, had seemed to have fled their body. Their shoulders were no longer raised, and they seemed to have drawn back somewhat. They looked smaller than they had when Chara had last seen them.

For a moment, Chara considered stopping. Perhaps they had made their point?

But no. There was no use backing down now. Frisk had to understand the consequences of their actions, present and past, and how it affected those for which they claimed to care. In any case, they would likely press the issue until Chara continued speaking.

Chara swallowed and shifted into the main point of their dialogue. “So if something that did not regularly happen, say, giving bodies and souls back to two children otherwise trapped as part of another’s soul or in the body of a flower. Hypothetically, of course.” They faltered for a moment, but then forced themself to stand firm. No turning back. “If you were to believe that someone needed your help, and your help alone, and that a true reset was the only viable way of providing it…” They took a breath. “Should you come to the conclusion that their need of help makes this ending not as perfect as you would hope, and you believe that it is possible to repeat the actions needed to save us eventually, then what is to stop you from making another true reset?”

Frisk swallowed, their fingers curling toward their palms. Chara could tell from their expression that the understanding of what their vow to do anything to save the missing child and the other monsters had meant had dawned on them.

“And what is to say that this has never happened before, and we have forgotten it to the true resets?”

Frisk opened their mouth. Closed it. Raised their hands. Watched them shake. Let them fall.

“I would never…” They trailed off their whisper, maybe from shame, maybe from the effort needed to speak.

They did not look convinced of their own statement.

“Would you not?” Chara could not speak this as loudly as they wished. Instead, it came out as a whisper, not so much a hypothetical question as a plea for them to say they would not.

Frisk dropped their gaze to the flowers that bent beneath their feet. “I… I don’t…”

And then they turned and fled.

As the thunderous sound of footsteps racing away slowly died from where they echoed around the hall outside the throne room, Chara wondered if, perhaps, they had just ruined yet another happy ending as well in their thoughtlessness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have a couple updates for you.
> 
> The first is that I've edited some previous chapters. Nothing major or story-related; I just fixed a few issues that had been bothering me while rereading this, including typos, capitalization of true resets/saves/loads, and a continuity error in Chapter 5 where Frisk is surprised that Chara doesn't remember Goner Kid when Chara wasn't fully awake at that time, so they don't really have any memory of that period of time. 
> 
> The second is that I'm considering writing stories in the future where Toriel ends up adopting Kris too. At the moment, I have two ideas regarding them, one shorter story, and a longer one that I would only start after the entirety of Deltarune is out. The thing is, the series name would no longer be accurate if this is the case. There are a couple ways to deal with this:
> 
> 1\. Add the stories, when they're written and posted, to this series and change the series name  
> 2\. Create a sequel series where any stories that take place after Kris's introduction are placed and just have notes on the series pages saying that this one and the new one are connected  
> 3\. Create a new series that includes both Dreemurr Siblings Three stories and any stories that occur with Kris, and only stories that take place before Kris's introduction are added to this one
> 
> It won't be for a while that any of these will happen-I'm quite busy with the two works in progress up here, as well as other projects both fanfic related and not. But if you have any preferences or suggestions, please let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is always welcomed!


End file.
